Cats and Hot Chocolate at Scootercaffe. Again.

I seem to find myself walking through the paint-coated Leake Street graffiti tunnel at least once a week lately to meet a different friend for what can certainly compete as London’s best hot Spanish-style chocolate at Scootercaffe. (If you know somewhere that beats it, leave it in the comments! Paul, I know, is awesome, but it’s a chain, so it doesn’t count. Because I said so.)

In a city with hundreds of cafes, I really shouldn’t keep going back, but it’s a place I return to time and again. I can’t help it. There’s just something about the dim basement with it’s haphazardly strung white lights that crisscross the ceiling and its stripped brick walls and 1920’s music. It has quirky, cluttered decor, trinkets of retro-fabulousness. It has live music. It has a garden that you can enter by climbing through a window. It has free wi-fi. It has VHS movie nights. It has candlelight. It has board games. It has cocktails. And, most importantly, it has cats.

You can find this little heaven of a cafe on 132 Lower Marsh, Lambeth, London SE1 7AE. But keep it a little bit hush hush. I still want to be able to find a seat next time I go.

Now your turn. Tell me about your favourite cafes in London please!

Sacred Cafe

After Cafe 1001 off Brick Lane and ScooterCaffe in Waterloo, one of my favourite places to chill out with a nice cup of properly made bag-less tea is Sacred Cafe on Ganton Street – a little haven from the consumer chaos of Oxford Circus and Carnaby Street.

There are actually six locations in London, but I’ve only been to this one so far. It was started up by a couple of Kiwi expats – Tubbs Wanigasekera and Matthew Clark. It’s cosy, as any good coffee shop should be. The atmosphere is relaxing with low lighting, church pews and leather sofas in the basement with candles and Buddha in a little alcove. Or you can sit outside if the sun decides to come back! Free wi-fi too. 

http://www.sacredcafe.co.uk/

Favourite coffee shops in London, anyone?

Cat and Coffee at Scootercaffe

This one is thanks to trailerfullofpix, the newest member of the Little London Observationist Flickr pool.

The caption reads:
“Scootercaffe, formerly a scooter shop (Scooterworks, which relocated in Bermondsey) and coffee bar with a resident cat. Now it’s just a caff with a cat. Lower Marsh Street.”

Anyone ever been here? Worth a trip? People on Qype think so. It got all 4 or 5 star reviews from everyone! Live music mid-week on Tuesday and Wesnesday and you can have a conversation over cocktails in a candlelit basement. There are, apparently, about 4 cats and tip money goes to their food fund (not that they probably don’t get enough of that from roaming around the place all day…) Qype reviews also tell me they have free films there on Monday nights.

Think I’m going to have to go down and scope it out!