London coffee, and the pastry to have with it

Brewed coffee costs £1.50 at the Algerian Coffee Stores on Old Compton Street, which has been selling coffee on the same street since 1887. A flat white at Prufrock on Leather Lane is £4.10. Most of what London has to offer a coffee drinker sits between those two numbers, and the bakeries below are where to take it.

How we chose: Time Out’s coffee and bakery lists (September 2026), The Infatuation’s coffee and bakery guides, the 2026 Best Coffee Shops UK list and the shops’ own menus.

Algerian Coffee Stores

Behind the red-and-white awning, the original wooden counter and shelves are still in use, and the £1.50 brewed coffee is the cheapest cup in this piece. Buy beans while you are there; that is the main business.

Old Compton Street, Soho · brewed coffee £1.50 · Mon–Sat · walk-in

Monmouth Coffee Company

Nick Saunders and Anita Le Roy started Monmouth on Monmouth Street, Covent Garden, in 1978, and it is credited as one of the founders of London’s third-wave coffee. The Park Street shop at the south end of Borough Market is always busy. Order the filter, and bring a cup or pay the deposit on theirs.

Park Street, London Bridge · filter coffee · walk-in

Prufrock Coffee

Leather Lane’s coffee bar changes its filter every week and prices the rest plainly: espresso £3.80, cortado £3.90, flat white £4.10. It made this year’s Best Coffee Shops UK list. A filled croissant is £8 if you need lunch too.

Leather Lane, Farringdon · flat white £4.10 · walk-in

Sofu Coffee

Clerkenwell’s Sofu, at 68 Compton Street, topped The Infatuation’s London coffee list in August 2026 with a menu built around Chinese roasters. Ask for a hand brew rather than an espresso.

Compton Street, Clerkenwell · walk-in

ZeroToOne Coffee

Vietnamese coffee is the speciality on Widegate Street, and the drink to try is cà phê muối, salted coffee. It is second on The Infatuation’s list and on the 2026 Best Coffee Shops UK list too.

Widegate Street, Spitalfields · walk-in

Batch Baby

Time Out’s number one coffee shop in London is a retro cafe on the ground floor of the Rose Lipman Building, with a candy-apple-red La Marzocco on the counter. Have the batch brew, among the cheapest good cups in town.

De Beauvoir Road, Haggerston · walk-in

Fortitude Bakehouse

Get there before 11am, when the beignets come out at this small bakery on the Colonnade in Bloomsbury, and they sell out. The pizza danish and the merguez baguette are the savoury options.

Colonnade, Bloomsbury · Mon–Fri 7:30am–4pm, weekends from 8:30am · walk-in

Quince Bakery

The brown butter bun is the order on New North Road, where the bakes are seasonal and pleasingly imperfect: buns, tarts, pies and scones. Pastry chef Anna Higham was due to open a 20-cover cafe, Clementine, up the road on 10 October.

New North Road, Islington · Wed–Sat · walk-in

The Dusty Knuckle

Dalston’s bakery started in a shipping container and now has a cafe across the way. Buy a rye or potato sourdough to take home and eat the morning bun there.

Abbot Street, Dalston · daily 8am–3:30pm · walk-in

Toad Bakery

Saturday means a queue on Peckham Road for Time Out’s top bakery in London: rotating danishes, chocolatines and cinnamon buns. If there’s a goat bear claw on the counter, take it. A second Toad trades at Market Yard in Deptford.

Peckham Road, Camberwell · Tue–Sat 8am–3pm · walk-in, queue on Sat

Bunhead Bakery

Sara Assad-Manning bakes from her Palestinian heritage in Herne Hill: rose and cardamom swirls, knafeh and a musakhan bun. The musakhan bun is the one you won’t find elsewhere.

Dulwich Road, Herne Hill · Thu–Sun · walk-in

Checked October 2026.