Prufrock Coffee

Leather Lane Gets Serious

3.5 of 5

Leather Lane is a street market where office workers queue for noodles at one o'clock. Prufrock sits in the middle of it, on number 23-25, and has been there since 2011. It sells coffee to people who care about coffee and food made from scratch to people who just want lunch. Both groups leave satisfied, which is harder than it sounds.

The place also runs education and training programmes, which tells you something. A café that teaches other people to make coffee has to be sure of its own. The kitchen works with sustainably sourced ingredients and cooks from scratch, and the website sells beans and gear for home. Nothing about this is flashy. It is a working room, open seven days, with the hours of a place that expects regulars: 7:30 on weekday mornings, 9 on Sundays.

I trust a bar that teaches over a bar that preaches. Turn up on a workday morning, stand where the baristas are in view, and order a filter before you order anything clever. Then walk the market stalls with the cup in your hand. That is the correct way to do Farringdon, and the City types in lanyards have known it for years.

Order this: A filter from the rotating menu, An espresso at the bar, Whatever the kitchen has baked or cooked that day
The damage: $$
Go: A weekday morning, before the lunch crowd on Leather Lane
Find it: 23-25 Leather Lane, London EC1N 7TE