A break from the daily grind | London Grind, 2 London Bridge, London, SE1 9RA
Bake enough bread and you’ll earn enough dough (and visa versa) Photograph: London Grind
The humble coffee shop culture is developing all the time. Who decided coffee should just be a day time thing? London Grind is open from 7am offering breakfast, all-day dining with dishes such as Chicken salad, pomegranate, cavalo nero (£8.50) and King prawns, chicory, crushed chia seeds (£14). There’s cocktails too, plus if you sign up for a Black Card you can get cocktails for £5 all night on Mondays! Their Espresso Martini (£7) is said to be one of the best in London.
You may already know of the Shoreditch Grind cafe, the first in the group – an unusual circular building with a diner vibe to it. There’s Holborn and Soho too but the latest branch in that old iconic building on London Bridge is the groups first foray into serving up proper food, not just nibbles. With Borough Market on the doorstep they couldn’t find a better location for fresh produce. Well they probably could but this is a pretty impressive one.
It’s in here!
We work a ten minute walk away from here for our ‘day job’ so were excited by its arrival, apart from the wonderful Shard, Bump Caves and The Breakfast Club, there’s not a huge amount around these parts. Plus it meant that if we got our arses out of bed a bit early, we could pop in for breakfast before work which was is huge novelty for us.
It does get busy, honest
It was pretty buzzing at 8.45am, mostly full of workers getting their morning coffees although we noticed the kitchen churning out a lot of breakfast takeaway orders. The music was louder than you’d expect for this time of day, I’d love to know what decibel it increases to by night. In case you’re interested, they were playing a very moody chill outy album called Dusk to Dawn by Emancipator (thanks Shazam).
Neon well and truly put the filament bulbs in the shade
Staff are warm and friendly, decor is fairly industrial – you know the look by now, exposed brickwork and ceiling, filament bulbs etc etc. I felt a little pang of sadness when I spotted the large neon sign hanging on the wall: ‘When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’, remembering the late Wilkes’ final blog post.
Sugar couldn’t stop staring at Latte but his brother, Flat White, looked pretty tasty too.
Coffee was great, as to be expected, the Grind Espresso blend is a mix of Brazil Fazenda Sao Silvestre 40% Mexico Finca Muxbal 40% Guatamala Santa Ana La Huerta 20%. I had a Flat White (£2.70) and a Large Latte (£3) for him. These felt like pretty boring choices when there’s things like a Ristretto (£2.20) and a Long Black (£2.20) on the menu, but then I’d have to Google them* to remind myself what they are and I’d already spent enough time on Shazam.
Juices come in traffic light colours…
After our coffees we had a juice each, the descriptions on the menu are non-existent, just Orange, Green, Amber or Red. We enquired further with our knowledgeable waiter and found the Red (£4.50) was beetroot and blackberry and Amber (£4.50) blood orange, lemon and ginger. They arrived in mini milk bottles which we’re convinced makes anything taste good. Seriously though, these were tasty juices.
Breakfast Focaccia waited in the wings whilst One-Pan Eggs prepared for her close up…
… and here it is!
To eat I chose the One-pan eggs (£7.50) with spinach, tomatoes, beans, pistachios although there was tonnes of other stuff I wanted to try, like the Banana bread with creme fraiche and honeycomb (£5) and the Raw breakfast salad of kale, broccoli, avocado, seeds, poached egg (£7). As you might have noticed, there’s no junk food here, it’s all pretty healthy stuff. My one-pan eggs was an unusual dish, so very sweet and filling, I couldn’t quite manage it all and wondered if I chose wrong. Meanwhile, Ade devoured his Breakfast focaccia (£7) – sausage, back bacon, asiago, egg, aioli and donated me a tiny mouthful of the perfectly cooked bacon.
We were hoping to swing by one evening before posting this to try a cocktail but we have acquired a cat (long story) and have been rushing home every night after work to make sure he’s OK. Don’t worry, this madnness won’t last long.
*For fellow coffee idiots, here’s a guide to what coffee’s what!
londongrind.com
2 London Bridge, London, SE1 9RA
Telephone: 020 7378 1928
Opening hours: Monday – Wednesday 7am–11.00pm
Thursday – Friday 7am–Midnight Saturday 8am-Midnight Sunday 9am-7pm
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We ate as guests of London Grind, this does not affect our review in any way. We always write with complete honesty.
