The best cafes in London

Perfect Blend is an all-day bar and restaurant located in Streatham. It serves fantastic brunches, but if you are visiting later in the day, it also has artisan pizza, family lunches, and relaxed late-night drinks. You’ll find vegan-friendly menus as well as a drinks menu stuffed with some of the best juicy smoothies and inventive lattes around to complement your orders. Flavours include turmeric, beetroot and matcha. If you are just stopping in for coffee, then Perfect Blend serves fresh homemade cakes daily, perfect to go with your cup of joe!

The menu’s breakfast section has plenty of great egg options, including smashed avocado and two poached eggs on toast with optional chorizo, or you could go with a classic meal of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on toast. There are also American pancakes with berries and maple syrup for vegans. Delicious, in a word.

Rule Zero is a little different to the other options on this list, it’s a board game café with three floors, and each has something different going on. The ground floor functions predominantly as a café, while the upstairs is packed with classic games like chess and scrabble and has space for tabletop wargames.

If the appeal of the games isn’t enough, there’s also the tasty food. Some of our favourites include The Fully Loaded Toast, which consists of buttered farmhouse white toast with baked beans, sausage, bacon and hash brown. In addition, there is the Green Toast option for vegetarians, which is toast with asparagus, pea tendrils, and a drizzle of olive oil.

The Toast Rack prides itself on its capabilities as a bakery, and unsurprisingly it serves lots of freshly baked delicacies like pizzas and bread. The Toast Rack’s menu is incredibly expansive with brunch, lunch, dinner, pudding, and junior and drinks sections, so your café visit doesn’t need to be a morning one. If it is though, we recommend the Belgian waffles with truffle butter, hand-cut griddled bacon, maple syrup and fried egg, or one of the fantastic breakfast sandwiches like the classic BLT.

Probably one of the prettiest cafes in London, Peggy Porschen has featured on many an Instagram story for a good reason. The light pink and white décor and abundance of beautiful flowers to match its colour scheme makes Peggy Porschen every sophisticated lady’s dream venue for a classy brunch or café spot. The menu doesn’t disappoint either; there’s brunch and all-day breakfast menus and a fine selection of cakes to go with them. The Buttermilk Pancakes personally tingled our tastebuds with mixed berries, lemon and vanilla mascarpone with maple syrup and red berry coulis. However, if you are more of a savoury lad or lady, you might be more interested in the Parlour Shakshuka, which consists of poached eggs on a mildly spiced, sweet tomato and bell pepper stew, topped with feta cheese, fresh herbs and served with toasted sourdough.

Aubaine is a very classy locale with hanging flower decorations, a tiled floor, and a dominant white colour theme. This is definitely the place to take a special someone for a romantic breakfast or brunch or someone you need to make a great first impression on.
Unlike some other cafes, Aubaine goes the extra mile by having a separate pastries menu, including croissants, pain aux pistaches, pain aux raisins, and even our favourite, pain au chocolat. Not a fan of a carb-heavy breakfast? The wider breakfast menu has a lot more to offer, too, like omelette (choose between ham, cheese, spinach and/or tomatoes), eggs imperial (lobster with a poached egg on an English muffin served with hollandaise sauce) and avocado toast. Personally, we recommend trying the eggs imperial. It’s not every day you get to try a breakfast that has lobster in it!

The Berkeley Café is the perfect space for an impromptu get-together. Here you’ll find signature, all-day dining plates, with breakfast, goûter and desserts created by Cédric Grolet. Located in upmarket Knightsbridge, this is a popular spot that’s well worth booking a table for.

Hopper Coffee is a family-owned coffeehouse with a welcoming ambience, boasting a delicious brunch as well as fresh and appealing pastries. What’s more, this cafe is also a dog-friendly workplace, so if you’re looking to bring your four-legged friend with you they’ll be very welcome.

London’s most authentic French brasseries, GAZETTE is committed to fantastic seasonal food, wine discoveries, unique private dining and true hospitality. The Chancery location of this chain is tucked away in a beautiful London Court, yards from the station and minutes from the heart of London. This is the latest venture too, making it perfect for business lunches and drinks and nibbles after work – a little rural comfort in the heart of “decision making” London.

Barbie Green lies within the remains of St Alphage Church and sections of the original City of London Wall, dating back to the second century! Although historically British, the site of Barbie Green also perfectly encapsulates the characteristically Australian “outside in” feel thanks to fully retractable glass windows opening up onto over an acre of ancient gardens. Just like its sibling sites, Barbie Green is the perfect spot for the first coffee meeting of the day, to enjoy a casual brunch, or to indulge in evening al fresco drinks. Unique within the Daisy Green Collection, Barbie Green also offers fire-baked, Roman-style thin and crispy pizzas all day.