fitzroyalty

My plan for finding accommodation while in London was to try different areas of the city and learn a little of their local culture. The Earl’s Court district of the Kensington borough sounded like somewhere worth trying and it proved to be fun and convenient, particularly because the tube station is an intersection of three lines. If you look beyond the chain cafes on the high streets there are treats to be found.

My favourite cafe proved to be Bench’o, an average looking cafe on Earl’s Court Rd. Apart from familiar dishes like a full English breakfast or eggs benedict, they make shakshouka (eggs in a Moroccan spiced tomato sauce, below), which is served with a crusty baguette and pesto. Bench’o also do a strong macchiato.

Although it also makes excellent coffee, the Troupadour cafe (and its eccentric interior, below) on Old Brompton Rd didn’t receive a return visit from me. The man who served me added the widespread 12.5% service charge to my order – a single cup of coffee. I could not believe the bill when it was presented to me, and I asked in genuine incredulity how he could justify asking for an extra 25p just for delivering my £1.95 coffee to me. He shrugged in complete indifference and sniffed ‘you obviously don’t live in London’.

I wanted to respond with something like ‘no, I live in a city where the cafe culture is very competitivie and where customers would rebel against such greed and bad service, and if you set up there you’d soon be out of business’, but what would have been the point?

I paid a 10% or 12.5% service charge without complaint in London when the menu clearly stated that it went to the staff (many customers suspect that it is simply a tourist tax that further profits business owners) and where the service was good enough to deserve it). In this case, the service went rapidly from normal to hostile, so I exercised my right to refuse to pay it. The miserable twit sarcastically gave me a 5p discount on my coffee in response.

Although you may not expect it, the little K & S bakery (also on Old Brompton Rd) also makes a great macchiato, and for only £1.35 without a service charge or additional attitude. The interior smells like rye and carraway bread, and they make a variety of German and continental cakes and breads. The lone woman behind the counter was extremely busy as people constantly came in for takeaway treats. She had Kate Bush on the stereo. I tried a sausage roll and then got a pain au chocolat to takeaway.

Finally, I peeked into a little Lebanese place and discovered they do great coffee and omelettes for breakfast, like the cheese and mint omelette (below, similar to that at Siyia on Smith St).

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This entry was posted on Saturday, February 6th, 2010 at 12:01 am and is filed under London, coffee, food, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.