Week beginning November 26th - Respect to those early starters

We have updated the website, (I hope you noticed), so now we have the blog section, this one, separate to the menu section, but, if you are interested, the menu will still be down below so you can have a quick look if you are tempted.

This week it's about getting up early: Respect.

When Kaffeine first opened, I used to be here around 6:30/7:00 am. Doors would open at 7:30 am and it took 30 minutes for Catherine and I to set up, and I would often do 30 minutes work before set up time.

Then, when Chef Jared went back home to renew his visa, I worked in the kitchen for seven weeks, so had to be here at 5:45 am have a quick bite of cereal and unpack all our deliveries and to be changed and ready for 6 am,

Now that we have Layla (who is almost three) I get up at 6 am and leave home at 7:15 to get her to Nursery around the corner for 8:00 am to be at work by 8:15/8:30.

But still on occasion, I go to work early if I do not have Layla, and it continuously reminds me and amazes me how many people go to work very, very early. Thousands. Our chef Jared is here at 5:30 am each day and the other chefs are here at 6:15 or earlier. But there are thousands of others who all do the same, and when you get up so early and it is cold and dark, and you leave your house all lonely, but then you get to the tube and see all these people, you feel better. Try catching the first tube on a Sunday morning at 7 am. It's packed!

And for that I say, respect. Well done to all the thousands who go to bed early, who get up early, for being punctual and for getting this amazing city ready to function each day.

If you ever are in need of inspiration, try it. Get up and go to work for 7 am or even earlier and see all the others who do it. Trust me, it's hard.

Please enjoy this weeks menu, because we have enjoyed making it and we will enjoy serving it to you.


Traditional bircher muesli with rhubarb and raspberry compote 3.50
Granola muesli with pomegranate molasses and rhubarb and raspberry compote 3.50
Fruit salad (pineapple, mango, strawberries, grapes, passionfruit, peach) 3.70
(add 30 p for granola or yogurt)
Ciabatta roll with omelette, pancetta, rocket and tomato salsa 4.90
Ciabatta roll with courgette omelette, rocket and tomato salsa 4.90
Croissant with Italian roast ham, talleggio cheese, spinach & plum tomatoes 4.90
Croissant with gruyere cheese and plum tomatoes 4.00
Seven seed bakery bloomer toast with homemade preserves 1.70
Coffee, cherry and walnut toast 2.30
Banana bread 2.40

Porridge - Served with rhubarb and raspberry compote, chopped nuts, muscovado sugar, golden syrup or honey 3.00

Pastries by Seven Seed bakery
French butter croissants 1.80
Pain au chocolat 2.40
Almond croissants 2.80

Baked Treats
Cranberry and almond sweet muffins 2.20
Garden peas, mint and feta savoury muffins 2.20
Tiramisu friands 2.20
Super moist chocolate brownies 2.40
White chocolate blondies 2.40
Portuguese tarts 2.00
ANZAC cookies 1.80
Whoopie pies 1.80
Lamingtons (Thurs/Fri/Sat only) 2.50

Lunch
Soup - Seafood chowder with 3 corner garlic 4.50

French retro baguettes 4.90
Ham with Dijon, red onion, gruyere, spinach
Plum tomatoes with bufala mozzarella, spicy red pesto, rocket

Foccacias with sea salt and rosemary crust 5.00
Italian roast ham with red onion jam, mature cheddar and spinach
Smoked salmon with lemon butter, capers, dill and rocket

Salads 5.50/6.50
January King cabbage with hot smoked salmon, carrot, onion and celery pickled with rice wine vinegar
Roasted butternut with goats cheese, coriander seed and coffee dressing
Crones with wilted broad bean tops, garlic and soy

Tart 4.00 or 7.50 with salad
Sweet potato with nutmeg cheese sauce

Week beginning November 19th - DIY

Okay, so you want to open a cafe? Excellent. Is it because you love making coffee, or love making food, or love serving customers? Is it because you want to be your own boss? Is it because you think it's a great way to make loads of money and a great sexy lifestyle?

Well here is a tip. You probably will not be making coffee, or making food, or serving customers all day every day. You will probably also take a long time to make loads of money.  And in many many cases, it is not very sexy. Because when you open a cafe, you open a business. So therefore, quite logically, you will be RUNNING A BUSINESS.

Even if it is very, very small, you will still have to do all the other things that running a business entails. Or, you will have to spend a lot of money on getting experts to do them for you. Now, I know of a very reputable place that offers a two day, how to open a cafe workshop and this is probably one of the best types of courses you could possibly do in London, facilitated by some top experts in the field. But what I also recommend you do are courses in:

How to be an electrician
How to be an accountant
How to be a plumber
How to be a leader
How to do marketing
How to do human resources
How to be a painter

In the past three weeks alone we have done all this ourselves:

• Found a leaking pipe under the floorboards that was dripping into the kitchen. But we had the get the experts in to fix this and it cost £216.
• Fixed a broken flush button on one toilet
• Fixed a broken toilet seat on another toilet
• Unblocked the sewer (twice now)
• Found the reason water was coming under our back wall so had to climb out the back to unblock a gully trap drain, down a man hole, after scaring away the nesting pigeons
• Freshened up high wear areas by re-painting them
• Installed a new lock on a door to the staff area

And that is just a small example. Imagine if we had the experts in to fix all these problems, it would have cost a fortune!

If you want to open a business, that is great, but please do be aware that is does entail a lot of other  things that you have to do as well, not just making coffee, and you need to be a little bit of an expert in everything. DIY.

Please enjoy the menu this week, because we have enjoyed putting it together and we will enjoy serving it to you.


Traditional bircher muesli with rhubarb and raspberry compote 3.30
Granola muesli with pomegranate molasses and rhubarb and raspberry compote 3.30
Fruit salad (pineapple, mango, strawberries, grapes, passionfruit, peach) 3.50
(add 30 p for granola or yogurt)
Ciabatta roll with omelette, pancetta, rocket and tomato salsa 4.70
Ciabatta roll with courgette omelette, rocket and tomato salsa 4.70
Croissant with Italian roast ham, talleggio cheese, spinach & plum tomatoes 4.70
Croissant with gruyere cheese and plum tomatoes 3.90
Seven seed bakery bloomer toast with homemade preserves 1.70
Coffee, cherry and walnut toast 2.30
Banana bread 2.20

Porridge - Served with rhubarb and raspberry compote, chopped nuts, muscovado sugar, golden syrup or honey 3.00

Pastries by Seven Seed bakery
French butter croissants 1.70
Pain au chocolat 2.30
Almond croissants 2.70

Baked Treats
Blueberry and bran sweet muffins 2.00
Spinach and feta savoury muffins 2.00
Poached pear friands 2.00
Super moist chocolate brownies 2.30
White chocolate blondies 2.30
Portuguese tarts 1.90
ANZAC cookies 1.70
Whoopie pies 1.70

Lunch
Soup - Shaved Brussels sprouts with pancetta, pecorino pieces and cider

French retro baguettes 4.70
Pancetta, glazed apricots, brie and rocket
Aubergine, sweet chilli, goats cheese, thai basil, spinach

Foccacias with sea salt and rosemary crust 4.90
Italian roast ham with clementine mayonnaise, roasted sweet potato and rocket
Bufala mozzarella with slow roasted tomatoes, pesto and spinach

Salads 4.90/5.90
Fried chicken with fried chicken mushrooms, cos lettuce and mushroom and tarragon dressing
Beetroot, mature cheddar and dill
Celeriac curried with mustard seeds

Tart 4.00 or 6.90 with salad
Quiche with mozart potatoes, brie, spinach and truffle oil

A1 or A3 licence - An Explanation

Are you considering opening your own cafe? Do you know anything about the 'licences to trade' in the UK and the restrictions these place on a business. Have you ever wondered about the difference between a cafe and a shop or a restaurant or a pub or a showroom?

Basically it is this, or at least this is my understanding and story. The council, or government, allocate a licence to trade to each building. Here are some examples:

Class A1. Shops
Use for all or any of the following purposes—
 (a) for the retail sale of goods other than hot food,
 (b) as a post office,
 (c) for the sale of tickets or as a travel agency,
 (d) for the sale of sandwiches or other cold food for consumption off the premises,
 (e) for hairdressing,
 (f) for the direction of funerals,
 (g) for the display of goods for sale,
 (h) for the hiring out of domestic or personal goods or articles,
 (i) for the reception of goods to be washed, cleaned or repaired,
where the sale, display or service is to visiting members of the public.

Class A2. Financial and professional services
Use for the provision of —
 (a) financial services, or
 (b) professional services (other than health or medical services), or
 (c) any other services (including use as a betting office) which it is appropriate to provide in a shopping area,
where the services are provided principally to visiting members of the public.

Class A3. Food and drink
Use for the sale of food or drink for consumption on the premises or of hot food for consumption off the premises.

PART B

Class B1. Business
Use for all or any of the following purposes—
 (a) as an office other than a use within class A2 (financial and professional services),
 (b) for research and development of products or processes, or
 (c) for any industrial process,
being a use which can be carried out in any residential area without detriment to the amenity of that area by reason of noise, vibration, smell, fumes, smoke, soot, ash, dust or grit.

So the shop for Kaffeine is an A1 licence, as are all the s...bucks, costas, prets etc and probably most other independent cafes. Being A1 means you are primarily for the sale of take away food and of course coffee or tea. But the question is, how much food can you prepare, of what type and what methods can you use to prepare it? Can you cook on site at all?

For example, can you do cooked bacon and eggs on a plate for service? Does this fit in with council guidelines? Can you actually cook on the premises at all? What about soup or porridge? We cook virtually everything, but we do not cook to order, we only 'prepare food primarily for the retail sale and we also heat food as required for consumption'.

Before opening, this was a major question for us, and luckily I had the advice of the Taylor Street baristas owners to guide me, thank goodness for them! So we started cooking on site, preparing all our food as you know it.

Then, about six months ago, we were investigated by council on whether we are breaching the license conditions because we had installed an extraction canopy in order to ventilate the kitchen and because of this they assumed we were cooking large commercial quantities.

For this I had to give them our menus, a list of all our equipment, a breakdown of our sales and the relation between take away and eat in, how many seats we have, how many customers we serve per week. It was a six page document that took ages to fill in.

They also came and visited, twice actually, and took photos, asked questions, had a good look around.

They came back to us with their decision that we were trading as per the lawful guidelines of an A1 licence, which was great news, but that we should possibly investigate having less seats. (We seat 24 people at any one time, but we serve over 600 per day).

My understanding now is that the council really do not have strict guidelines either, or that the lines are so blurred or they do not have consistency in their decisions between them, so it is a really difficult and potentially frustrating area.

At the ends of it though, we are very very happy with their decision  as we believed we were doing the right thing all along, and we hope that you are happy too, because you are 'legally' allowed to enjoy our menu this week.




Traditional bircher muesli with rhubarb and raspberry compote 3.30
Granola muesli with pomegranate molasses and rhubarb and raspberry compote 3.30
Fruit salad (pineapple, mango, strawberries, grapes, passionfruit, peach) 3.50
(add 30 p for granola or yogurt)
Ciabatta roll with omelette, pancetta, rocket and tomato salsa 4.70
Ciabatta roll with courgette omelette, rocket and tomato salsa 4.70
Croissant with Italian roast ham, talleggio cheese, spinach & plum tomatoes 4.70
Croissant with gruyere cheese and plum tomatoes 3.90
Seven seed bakery bloomer toast with homemade preserves 1.70
Coffee, cherry and walnut toast 2.30
Banana bread 2.20

Porridge - Served with rhubarb and raspberry compote, chopped nuts, muscovado sugar, golden syrup or honey 3.00

Pastries by Seven Seed bakery
French butter croissants 1.70
Pain au chocolat 2.30
Almond croissants 2.70

Baked Treats
Pear, honey and oats sweet muffins 2.00
Spinach and feta savoury muffins 2.00
Melilot friands 2.00
Super moist chocolate brownies 2.30
White chocolate blondies 2.30
Portuguese tarts 1.90
ANZAC cookies 1.70
Whoopie pies 1.70

Lunch
Soup - Puha and pork

French retro baguettes 4.70
Chicken, salsa verde, brie, rocket
Courgette, gruyere, red peppers, lemon and mustard mayonnaise

Foccacias with sea salt and rosemary crust 4.90
Ham, mature cheddar, cranberry jelly, red onion, rocket
Mushrooms with Welsh rarebit and spinach

Salads 4.90/5.90
Red pomolo, crab, frisee lettuce, pickled horseradish, wasabi dressing
Sauteed rape greens with honey baked tofu
Roasted root parsley

Tart 4.00 or 6.90 with salad
savoury scone with poached pear, cote hill cheese and watercress

Week beginning November 5th - Making coffee and travelling

Brilliant. A 2 week holiday with family in Australia (Melbourne), then a weeks break in Dubai on the way home. But, what do you do about coffee in the mornings and, if required, in the afternoon? We were staying at my Mum's  and also my parents' in law place and unfortunately they are not very close to any good cafes in Melbourne.

So what do we do? Simple. Take an Aeropress, a Porlex grinder, some scales and 350 grams of single origin coffee. All of this weighs less than a kilo easily, and every morning  while on holiday, we made amazing, simple filter style coffee for us and for our families. And it was so much fun!

I cannot emphasise enough how great this is and how easy. At Kaffeine we are fortunate in that our lead barista Shaun Young is the current UK Aeropress champion, so I have gleaned a few tips from him, but really once you know the recipe, then you can just play with it a bit yourself and adjust as and when required.

If you really wish to make great tasting coffee at home, or when travelling, then this is the way. If you are unsure, please come and ask as Shaun or any of our baristas will be more than happy to help.

And the good news, if you are really interested, or know someone who needs a good Christmas present, is that we offer classes on both home brewing and latte art. Held every two months, the next ones are in December, on the 5th for home brewing and on the 12th for latte art and are only £30 per person.

Making your world a better place, one coffee at a time.


Traditional bircher muesli with rhubarb and raspberry compote 3.30
Granola muesli with pomegranate molasses and rhubarb and raspberry compote 3.30
Fruit salad (pineapple, mango, strawberries, grapes, passionfruit, peach) 3.50
(add 30 p for granola or yogurt)
Ciabatta roll with omelette, pancetta, rocket and tomato salsa 4.70
Ciabatta roll with courgette omelette, rocket and tomato salsa 4.70
Croissant with Italian roast ham, talleggio cheese, spinach & plum tomatoes 4.70
Croissant with gruyere cheese and plum tomatoes 3.90
Seven seed bakery bloomer toast with homemade preserves 1.70
Coffee, cherry and walnut toast 2.30
Banana bread 2.20

Porridge - Its back. Served with rhubarb and raspberry compote, chopped nuts, muscovado sugar, golden syrup or honey 3.00

Pastries by Seven Seed bakery
French butter croissants 1.70
Pain au chocolat 2.30
Almond croissants 2.70

Baked Treats
Gala apple with calvados and walnuts sweet muffins 2.00
Red pepper with goats cheese and basil savoury muffins 2.00
Melilot friands 2.00
Super moist chocolate brownies 2.30
White chocolate blondies 2.30
Portuguese tarts 1.90
ANZAC cookies 1.70
Whoopie pies 1.70

Lunch
Soup - Rabbit with rape greens and tomato

French retro baguettes 4.70
Aubergine with sweet chilli, goast cheese, thai nbasil and rocket
Coppa cotta ham with dijon, red onion, gruyere, tomato and spinach

Foccacias with sea salt and rosemary crust 4.90
Roast beef with gjetost, tomato, red onion and spinach
Bufala mozzarella with tomatoes, aioli and spinach

Salads 4.90/5.90
Chorizo with panko fried cauliflower, wild chervil and lemon dressing
Pears with ewe's cheese, basil, black garlic dressing and watercress
Brown rice cooked in coconut milk served with scurvy grass and wild horseradish

Tart 4.00 or 6.90 with salad
Red onion with thyme, mustard and gruyere