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The expansion of WatchHouse Coffee is such that at this point, there's a veritable Watch Village — or, at least, at Watch Hamlet — in and around Bermondsey. I visited their  newest location in 70 St Mary Axe  last week, and it was highly impressive: both in terms of the cafe build-out and the coffee itself. WatchHouse was re-established in Bermondsey in 2012 — the same year I established myself in Bermondsey, and I'm a regular at WatchHouse's three coffee shops in the neighbourhood, especially the Maltby Street roastery  and the Bermondsey original , on the site of a former watch house next to St Mary Magdalen churchyard. My fellow coffee blogger Brian and I met at the former for lunch earlier this summer and you can find out what he made of the roastery here . One of the nicest things about the WatchHouse coffee shops is that they all have very different characters while occupying very different kinds of building. 70 St Mary Axe is no exception — designed by Foggo Archit...

With the glorious British summer in full force — oh, wait, that was two weeks ago — it was the perfect time for a staycation. I joined my parents in Pall Mall for a couple of nights last weekend, and although it wasn't as sunny as we had hoped, nor was it as rainy as forecast, and we made the best of it, dining at three different restaurants and spending a very enjoyable day exploring Notting Hill. Friday night: A flamboyant dinner at Ave Mario I hadn't managed to visit either of Big Mamma Group's original duo of ostentatious Italian restaurants, but we got a table at the third, Ave Mario , which opened a few weeks ago in Covent Garden. Perhaps the most OTT of the three, Ave Mario is an assault on all of the senses, from the incredible illuminated bar that takes centre stage in the main dining room and the neon-lit mirrors in the hallways (one encouraging diners to 'confess here'), to the cheeky cocktails, cheekier cocktail glasses and caviar-laden sharing dishes. ...

The closely interconnected nature of London's evolving speciality coffee scene has been something of a theme on this blog lately . And while earlier this month I was at the original Kiss the Hippo — whose second location near Oxford Circus is based in the former Curators Coffee Gallery coffee shop — this week, I found myself returning to Curators Coffee Studio in the City of London. What a pleasure it is to be so spoiled for choice these days. Before its closure, Curators Coffee Gallery, co-founded by Cath Seay, was one of my favourite and most visited London coffee shops, but although its City sister is closer to my home, I was only able to go rarely, as it only opens on weekdays, when I was at work in King's Cross. While I'm working from home, lunchtime visits to coffee shops in the City, like Curators Coffee Studio and Red Lion Coffee Co. are back on the cards. It was on a recent trip to Red Lion that I spotted an A-board promising speciality coffee and pastries, and...