The best coffee isn’t in the best coffee places

I am becoming an increasing fan of meeting for a coffee in a restaurant during the day. Of course, the usual top coffee recommendations involve places with beards and bare bricks aplenty, but they also involve places usually short of elbow room, even more short of chairs and where there’s a heavy pressure to move on rather than linger.

Restaurants, such as today’s Côte Restaurant in Tavistock Street, are a peaceful, spacey haven by comparison. And the coffee is good.

The idea of meeting somewhere for a coffee where the emphasis is on the venue being good to linger and do things like spread out books and papers or tap on laptops isn’t one usually mentioned, with a few exceptions.

Which either means my preference is eccentrically niche or, lucky reader, you’re in at the ground floor with me on a new trend that will sweep the nation in 2016. 2015 was the year of the avocado, so 2016 has to be something else.

And if this trend for coffee at Cote or other restaurants does sweep the country, perhaps next up will be hotel reviews starting to feature the size of the desks. They’re often tiny yet surely for business travellers in particular, knowing if the desk is a decent size to work at is a useful thing to know?

Another question to ponder over a coffee.

In a restaurant.

(Usual disclaimer: Côte Restaurants – joint winner of Best Overall Restaurant Operator of the Year – are one of our clients at work but the restaurant choosing preference for coffee is all mine.)