"A corner cafe on Hackney Road where the pain au kimchi is the draw and the flat whites earn their keep. Columbia Road Flower Market is a short walk, and Sunday mornings are when this works best."
28 Hackney Rd, London E2 7DZ, UK
The room looks borrowed from a Shoreditch tattoo parlour. The espresso is as committed as the aesthetic, which is saying something.
Kiss the Hippo runs its own roastery and this Shoreditch branch is where you taste the full picture. Rotating single-origin lots on both espresso and filter, baristas who know what's in the hopper and why.
Flying Horse roasts their own beans in Hackney and pours them in Shoreditch, which is as close to the source as you'll get in this corner of the city. Come for the single origins.