Saint Espresso

3.5 out of 5

Located just next to Angel Station on Pentonville road, this small coffee shop grabbed my eye as I walked to work a few weeks ago and has become a semi-regular place to dip into. Why not a regular place you ask? We will get to that later (nice, build some intrigue, draw in the reader, my old English teacher would be so proud).

Saint's Coffee is that very standard 'Good' coffee that has sprung up all across the capital like caffeinated mushrooms. just a few years ago it would have been a real gem to find to but there is feeling of slightly corporate cookie-cutter hipsterness... (yeah I don't see that phrase catching on) as if a group of executives in their mid to late 30's listened to the Spotify indie playlist for an hour and then said " yep, we're down with the alternative crowd, let's make a coffee shop'.

This isn't to say it's bad, the beans are well roasted, they use nice organic whole milk and get a good thick layer on my Flat White and they serve some nice looking pastries on slates, another 'kind of alternative but not really touches'. But the staff are all identically dressed, with nary a nose piercing or sleeve-tats between them, the decor is all perfectly matched and it all feels just a little sterile, as if you could peel the skin back from the baristas faces to reveal a terminator skull with glowing red eyes and processors powered by money.

As one Google review (yes I had to Google the street it was on) whined 'It doesn't have any Wi-Fi and won't be getting any', a massive faux pas in alternative coffee shops as no pretentious bloggers can be expected to stay for long if they can't get online (yeah glass houses but I'm making a point). Clearly a focus group realised that Wi-Fi isn't cost effective for getting more people in and out of the shop, thus reducing revenue and going against BAR15STA core programming.

All in all, a decent cup of coffee with no warmth or character to the shop, be a faceless giant or a hipster hangout Saint's because being trying to be both only increases the chance your staff will go haywire and attack commuters with milk frothers, (which incidentally sounds like the plot of a Simon Pegg film)