Caffeine Hunter

London · Fitzrovia

Alex Coffee

The narrow teal Alex Coffee shopfront with its lettered sign, a cream scalloped awning and a glass door and window onto a warmly lit yellow room

Alex Coffee is about as small as a London coffee shop gets: a tall, narrow doorway and window on Hanson Street, a counter at the back, a couple of stools and a four seat table out front. It opened in December 2017 and is run by its owner, Alex, who deliberately keeps it to a single shop so the person who creates the coffee also makes your drink. There are no plans to clone it across the city.

Everything revolves around one signature coffee that is sourced, roasted and blended for a classic, chocolate leaning cup and adjusted through the year as new harvests arrive. It is pulled on a lever espresso machine with a Mahlkonig grinder, and a guest filter coffee from other fine roasters sits alongside it. Beans go home in refill packs, and the shop is open on weekdays only.