facttime

Somehow, I still haven't made it to  Lyle's , the modern British restaurant in Shoreditch, whose high-quality speciality coffee offering has won as many plaudits as the food. Luckily for me, a sister restaurant, Flor , opened up closer to home, in Borough Market, a few months ago. I've now visited twice, experiencing both a light breakfast at the downstairs bar and a lunch in the tiny but beautifully designed upstairs dining room. In a stuffier establishment, I might have felt out of place showing up for breakfast in my running kit one August morning, but at Flor, the welcome was warm — while the marble counter  that occupies most of the diminutive downstairs was pleasingly cool. There isn't a coffee menu — and there's no filter coffee — but the usual espresso-based drinks are available. They rotate coffee roasters, and on this first visit, the espresso was a honey-processed El Salvador variety roasted by Berlin-based Bonanza Coffee Roasters . I ordered a piccolo, w...

If you've been following my Instagram , you'll know that I spent a week in New York last month. I was there to work in my company's Financial District office but did get three weekend days and a public holiday free to explore in the city, and was blessed with crisp but sunny weather for most of the week. I'm lucky enough to visited New York about once or twice a year for the past quarter-century, which takes off the pressure and means coffee shops, restaurants and things to do can sometimes remain on my to-do list for a couple of years. I've already written about my most recent speciality coffee experiences here , but here's how I spent the rest of my trip. THINGS TO DO I took an early flight from Heathrow on the Sunday, and made it to my Financial District hotel just after 2 pm local time. I headed straight out into the sunshine, and walked up Broadway to SoHo for a spot of shopping, before cutting over to Washington Square Park. As usual, there was a lively at...