Flat White

Australian Peter Hall opened this Berwick Street shop with New Zealanders James Gurnsey and Cameron McClure in September 2005, and it's widely credited with introducing the flat white, and Antipodean style third wave coffee more broadly, to London. Within a few years it was reportedly pouring around 700 flat whites a day, and the name stuck as a shorthand for a whole category of coffee culture that followed it into the city.

The shop still runs walk in only, no reservations, with benches out front in the middle of Berwick Street Market, and it stays exactly the kind of place built for a quick coffee and conversation rather than a long working session.