Kin Cafe’s Roasted Vegetables with Feta Sandwich

Roasted vegetables with feta sandwich from Kin, Fitzrovia

I really should rename this blog ‘half a square mile’ as a lot of my sandwich hunting seems to be concentrated to the little patch of Fitzrovia around Great Portland Street and Great Titchfield Street.  I really need to start branching out a bit further.  This post is not the beginning of this new-found sandwich wanderlust, in fact, it is almost as close to my office as you can get.

Kin Cafe was a treasure I found at a particularly low ebb, unusually on a Friday.  I had been up late the night before, partly due to having a disagreement with a friend, partly due to the disagreement that Scottish voters were having with one another.  Once the referendum results were in, I sloped off for a very short and disturbed sleep.  The next day, understandably, was difficult.  By the time lunchtime rolled around, I was craving not comfort food, which is the way I usually go when tired, but the restorative power of vegetables.  I went for a stroll along Foley Street and found this sign:

It made me laugh so I popped in for a look.  Almost as soon as I was in the door I was invited to play ‘Guess the Bride’.  All of the staff were dressed up as you might on a hen night: all plastic tiaras, veils and glitter.  Only one of them was getting married.  I managed to guess right.  It was so fun in there it cheered me up immediately.

Kin Cafe has been open since June and seems to be thriving despite the huge concentration of cafes in this area vying for the money of local office workers.  It has the classic Fitzrovia set-up of good coffee, home-baked treats, bright salads and a couple of sandwiches, enough space to sit in and quick enough to take out.  There were two sandwiches on offer that day, thankfully one that was heavy on the vegetables – a combination of aubergine, red peppers and spinach with a little feta.  They quickly whipped it into a panini press before I took it back to my desk.

The trouble with roasted vegetables is that they can lack flavour if not properly seasoned – not the case here.  The aubergine had a little smokiness, like it had been cooked over a flame, and the red peppers were sweet.  The salty creaminess of the feta brought everything together well and the bread was good and robust.  If I had one small complaint, it was that it was on the small side, but that might just be an example of my greediness.  £5 – obvs (Fitzrovia).

Kin Cafe, 22 Foley Street, London W1W 6DT.

H T Harris’ Double Salami

The double salami from H T Harris, Fitzrovia

 In this ever-changing world of post-recession London, it is sometimes difficult to see too far into the past.  The constant churning of businesses opening and closing in the city means that streets can become unrecognisable from one year to the next.  Several times have I been to visit a cafe I used to love years ago, only to find that it has been turned into a Caffe Nero.  It’s quite a depressing thought.  Places that have been there for generations are becoming much fewer.

H T Harris on Great Titchfield Street has managed to survive the waves of chain eateries, new restaurants and ‘craft’ coffee shops that have moved into the area in recent years, and has become something of a Fitzrovia institution.  This little Italian cafe-deli has been serving up cappucinos and sandwiches to the local office workers for just shy of fifty years and has queues forming outside almost every lunchtime.  The approach is simple and probably unchanged for many years:  good Italian sandwiches, coffee and the usual deli items of pasta, amaretti biscuits, cheeses and cured meats.  The first time I went in, I asked for a sandwich menu.  The gentleman behind the counter replied:  “Anything you see here, we can do.”  He also gestured to the sandwiches piled up on three trays in the window, “Or we have double salami, some parma ham or a vegetarian one.”

I love this straightforward approach, he has probably been making the same sandwiches for years.  There’s no menu, no description of what the sandwiches are, or what is in them.  You just have to trust that they are good.  A double salami sandwich, in a piece of focaccia the size of a house brick was swiftly placed in the panini press for a few minutes and then was mine for a fiver (Fitzrovia, right?)

What I actually got was an enormous sandwich, generously filled with wafer thin Italian salami, some very good mozzarella, six or seven sundried tomatoes – sweet and almost black in colour, a layer of basil and rocket and more than just a hint of chilli (he did warn me that it would be spicy).  The focaccia was crisped and warm on the outside but still oily and moist enough that it was necessary to wipe your fingers before touching anything so not to leave greasy fingerprints.  A perfect example of how the best sandwiches are made with the best quality ingredients.  It’s easy to see how those piles in the window sell out every day.

H T Harris, 41 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 7PG.

Attendant’s Royal Chicken Sandwich

Royal chicken sandwich from Attendant, Fitzrovia

This is not the first time I have been to Attendant.  In fact, I have been going there for coffee at least twice a week since I started working in Fitzrovia a year ago.  I had my appraisal there and frequently meet colleagues there for meetings.  Initially it was the novelty of meeting in a converted public toilet that spurred me on, but I very quickly realised that they do very, very good coffee.

Let’s get the obvious characteristics out of the way first.  It is, indeed, an old public toilet.  With above-ground property prices soaring out of control, business owners are coming around to the idea of these subterranean spaces.  There are a few new ex-toilet openings in London, I am told, another one being WC in Clapham, but apparently this one was the best-preserved and least vandalised of them all.  So much so, that they have managed to keep the porcelain fittings intact and make a feature from them.  I was fortunate enough to be in there whilst the owner was recounting the history of the space. Fascinating.

Despite being in Attendant for coffee and cake so frequently, I had yet to try any of their lunch options.  Now that I am often out looking for lunch in Fitzrovia (or ‘sandwich-hunting’ as my colleagues call it), it seemed like a good time to start.  Attendant usually has three or four sandwiches on offer at lunchtime, as well as some rather delicious-looking avocado on toast that I have yet to try.  Once selected, they will gladly heat it up for you in a sandwich press before you either take a seat at one of the ‘urinals’ or head back to your office.

My sandwich of choice was the Royal Chicken, nothing, I was informed, to do with the recent royal baby announcement, rather that it was a take on the old coronation chicken.  The chicken was breast meat and (I think) roasted.  Along with this was a curried sauce, a little mayo, some sultanas and a herb salad.  The bread was good quality wholemeal bread, that lent itself well to being lightly toasted so the sauce sunk in and softened the inside.  I’m always partial to a good coronation chicken, but this is a great, slightly pared-down alternative that does not have the excess creaminess or overwhelming flavour of curry powder that many of them do, rather it is subtle and given a freshness by the addition of herbs.

It is £5 (isn’t every sandwich in Fitzrovia right now?) But is substantial enough to be your main meal of the day.  If you’re really keen to splash out, get yourself an americano and a lamington too.

Attendant, 27a Foley Street, London W1W 6DY (it’s underground!)

Kaffeine’s Ham, Cheese and Grilled Peach Baguette

The ham, cheese and grilled peach baguette from Kaffeine, Fitzrovia

You know when your hangover from Saturday night’s drinking lasts through until Monday it was a good weekend.  After dragging my sorry self into the office with a slight headache and the tail-end of the drunk dreads, the only thing that would remedy the situation was to get on to the streets of Fitzrovia and look for a good sandwich.

I only got as far as Kaffeine when I realised that a good coffee was exactly what I needed to shake me out of my current mood.  This little black-fronted coffee shop has taken a lot of flack since it opened a few years ago, however a slightly negative TimeOut review and some snipes about ‘hipster coffee’ hasn’t damaged its reputation.  Getting a seat outside the front window is near impossible and the inside too is always busy.  It almost always features on the list of best coffee in the capital and I, for one, am in agreement.  They use the excellent Square Mile Coffee and are really particular about how they make it.  Whilst not a coffee expert, I am always happy to receive a nice strong cup with a slick of crema.  Definitely not style over substance.

They have a range of sandwiches that are listed online in their weekly menu alongside a range of cakes, biscuits and pastries.  There are usually three sandwich options, with at least one vegetarian, which are usually seasonal and use a range of different breads.  Some have said that the £5 they charge for a takeaway sandwich (£5.30 to eat in) is a little steep, but this seems to be the going rate in Fitzrovia coffee shops these days, and is only really £1 more than the offerings of the chains, Pret, Eat etc.

I opted for a the ham and cheese baguette, which seems a bit of an underwhelming description for what I was served, which was an absolute delight.  Roasted Italian ham, mature cheddar cheese, grilled peaches, aioli and spinach.  Both the ham and cheese were deep in flavour and good quality, but it was the other accompaniments that made the sandwich.  A ham and cheese always needs a bit of mayo to loosen it up, but the substitution for aoili just gave it a little extra flavour element – a hum of garlic, but nothing too overpowering.  The grilled peaches added the sweetness and did the job that a chutney or relish would usually do.  It got me thinking that adding cooked fruit to a sandwich could actually be a more appealing option than chutney, as many of the ready-made versions are often too heavy in spice and vinegar and overpower the rest.  What else is there to say? Kaffeine make a damn good coffee and a damn good sandwich too.

Kaffeine, 66 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 7QJ

John Lewis’ 150 Years Ham and Cheese Sandwich

The ham and cheese sandwich from John Lewis’ A Place to Eat

Everybody’s favourite department store is currently celebrating 150 years since the opening of its flagship Oxford Circus store in 1864.  I often wonder what life would be like without John Lewis.  I am so fond of it that my best friend and I refer to it as ‘The Mothership’.

Department store cafes are a strange beast, evoking images of their 1990s glory days when you would trundle up the escalator from homewares for a cup of tea and a scone, and a quick trip to the loo, before heading home.  They still exist in their many guises; some have drastically improved and installed restaurants (Selfridges) whilst others are like stepping back in time to the above (BHS).

There seems to have been cafes in branches of John Lewis since time began and although they have moved with the times somewhat, there is still a sense of nostalgia:  the coffee is still served in teacups and you can still buy the largest scones on earth from the cake counter alongside the more modern vertiginously iced cupcakes.  The omelette station still seems to have the biggest queue which seems strange to me as I have never eaten an omelette in a cafe. Ever.

A Place to Eat, as it has been called for some time, is also celebrating 150 years of John Lewis by offering up some of the old favourites on the sandwich counter.  Prawn mayo baguettes with cucumber curled in a 1970s fashion and tuna sandwiches with a lot of cress sit next to the more modern offerings.  I opted for the heritage ham and cheese. The oldies are the goodies.

The baguette was at least a foot long, so was cut in half by the gentleman behind the counter.  Thick slices of ham were folded into the sandwich with triangles of cheese sticking vertically up from the slit like yellow shark’s fins.  Among the mixed leaves I detected a smear of sandwich pickle.

The bread was fresh and the ham good-quality and well-flavoured.  The cheese was a fairly generic medium cheddar, but nice enough.  The problem was that the whole thing was a little dry and didn’t quite have enough pickle.  A quick trip to the condiment station (that had just about everything by the way) procured a little sachet of mayonnaise that sorted it out right away.  Ham and cheese sandwiches have become a little hard to find of late, but a good one is a thing of beauty.  This is a good one, a little more pickle and it would be a great one.

Workshop Coffee’s Hummus, Harissa and Roasted Red Peppers Baguette

The hummus, harissa and roasted red peppers baguette from Workshop Coffee, Fitzrovia

There’s a lot of good coffee in Fitzrovia right now.  Gone are the days of the terrible freeze-dried stuff they provide at my office, or the overpriced chains where they burn the beans and scorch the milk (shudder).  With baristas flocking to W1 and new cafes opening up all the time, it is very difficult to remain monogamous to one.  The caffeine-hungry, it seems, are spoiled for choice.

On my return to work from a long summer holiday, I was pleasantly surprised to find a new branch of Workshop Coffee on Mortimer Street, conveniently placed at the very end of my commute.  I had schlepped over to their Marylebone branch a few times to pick up coffee for my home machine, but it was a little too far for a mid-morning sneak-out-of-the-office coffee.

I could talk about the coffee all day, but this is a sandwich blog, so I will leave it at this: it’s blinding.

The new Fitzrovia cafe is characteristically sparse in design, but has a comfortable seating area at the back, should you wish to stay a while.  My favourite feature of the place was the rows of bright peacock blue espresso cups lined up on top of the coffee machine.  If I hadn’t espresso cups enough, I would have bought one there and then.

There were only a few varieties of sandwich on offer, in a glass case by the window.  There was no menu in the shop, nor is there one on the website, so I imagine the selection changes daily.  I opted for the vegan option: hummus, harissa and roasted red peppers, with a bit of salad, on a malted wholemeal baguette.  It can be quite difficult to make vegan sandwiches filling and exciting, especially without the usual stalwarts of falafel or tofu, but this worked really well.

I often approach harissa with a bit of caution as it can be blisteringly hot (my brother-in-law makes a particularly ferocious one), but Workshop blended it with the hummus, which cooled it down whilst retaining the chilli tang.  The hummus was slightly chunky, which gave a good amount of texture, especially against the slipperiness of the roasted peppers.  If I’m being particularly fussy, I would have preferred the peppers to be chopped more finely to make the sandwich easier to eat.  Aside from that, it was perfect.

Best eaten with a cappuccino.

Workshop Coffee, 80 Mortimer Street, London W1U 1QD.