Where To Go For A Coffee Catch-Up In The Sun
Chances are you’ve spent a lot of time in coffee shops since you first started drinking the good stuff. It's about way more than just going for a caffeinated drink. It’s a pastime. An activity. A way of life. And these places all serve excellent coffee and have a great outdoor set-up for you to drink it in the sun.
We also have guides to London’s best coffee shops, where to go for a late-night caffeine fix, and coffee shops that are perfect for working.
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At Heidi, you get a sense that the people around you might not know what day of the week it is and you’ll forget too. The suntrap courtyard at this Chelsea cafe is big enough to gather all of your friends, and the display of pastries is tempting—get the shi shi doughnut.
This bright coffee shop in Battersea is our favourite place to bask in the sun and make the most of the heavy paw-fall coming from Battersea Park. The coffee is excellent, the Aussie-inspired brunch is great too, and the dark chocolate cookie is one of the best in London.
A great little neighbourhood coffee shop near London Fields, Running Late is the ideal place for a Hackney caffeine fix and a cookie. Although the outdoor seating is just a bench and a couple stools, it’s very much a place to be on sunny days.
The baristas at Nostos, a busy little Battersea cafe, are constantly in motion, pouring flavoursome batch brews and serving creamy, iced matcha lattes that you can enjoy in the zen, pocket-sized garden.
Despite the lovely seating upstairs, you should try and nab the bench outside Kuro Coffee when it’s sunny. This Notting Hill spot makes great coffee (we’re fans of their mocha in particular) and the baked goods from their sibling bakery around the corner, Kuro Bakery.
You’ll see at least three people with a cocoa-sprinkled lady finger balanced on their coffee cup outside Fred Coffee & Bakery. Sit on the suntrap terrace in Bloomsbury and get an iced tiramisu latte that’s part coffee, part dessert.
Burnt’s front bench and back garden calls to anyone who likes drinking coffee for the ritual of slowly sipping rather than a functional caffeine kick. Order from their brilliant brunch menu (our go-to is the chicken schnitzel with caesar salad), or just get a flat white and sit outside this leafy Shepherd’s Bush cafe.
Trampoline is a social enterprise cafe on Angel’s Camden Passage, with bright orange fronting that makes it hard to miss. There are a couple of tables outside where you can enjoy their great coffee.
Trampoline
The must-order at Café Kitsuné, a coffee hatch outside Belgravia’s Pantechnicon building, is the iced Spanish matcha, and the tables outside have some hanging fairy lights that make the space feel magical once the sun sets.
Giulia Verdinelli
This sugar den of California cool and handwritten blackboard menu charm is along on a quiet residential street near London Fields. And Violet Cakes’ little suntrap terrace is ideal for discussing the minutiae of your life with someone you love, while sipping on a latte and eating cupcakes.
Like a Floridian granny or a lizard, Day Trip thrives in the sun. The curved stone bench in the pocket-sized courtyard garden is ideal for chatting, sipping lattes (the takeaway cups are adorable), and mentally calculating how long it would take to afford an Islington townhouse like this one.
Paradox Design + Coffee is a dinky Netil Market unit serving interesting brews from small batch speciality roasters, like Yallah beans from the South West coast. It’s conveniently positioned next to the dog-petting, sunbathing paradise that is London Fields.
Aleksandra Boruch
The Elder Press Cafe is right by the Thames Path in a part of Stamford Brook that’s straight out of a Richard Curtis film. The charming courtyard—overspilling plant pots, Barbour-fied dogs—is ideal for meet-ups fuelled by Scandi-style plates of rye and smoked salmon and iced coffees.
Dachshunds shuffle around ankles and the pavement-side tables at this Ealing spot. Know that your chat will probably feature cheery interruptions from Pulp regulars, dog-walkers, and newspaper-readers.
Madre Terra is a coffee van in a pretty part of the Walthamstow Wetlands, next to picnic benches and just down from a bird hide. It’s the sort of place that makes you suck in lungfuls of air and proclaim, “what smog?”.
Sinéad Cranna
Cyclists balance Trek bikes against benches, dogs and children dart about, and those streaming out of Brockley station opposite stumble towards Browns Of Brockley like it’s a glimmering caffeine mirage. The Square Mile coffee and people-watching opportunities? Exceptional.
Sinéad Cranna
The iced coffees from Glass Coffee—we like ours with their homemade almond milk—are some of the best in London. And the open-air, Camden food market setting is lovely during that one week of sun we get every year. Don’t leave without trying the gooey brownie.
Victoria Park is the best place to see grass and trees when you’re around Hackney and Pavilion Cafe is the best place to get a cup of coffee and some poached eggs by the lake. All in all, it’s pretty glorious.
Home to a pistachio and yuzu icing cake we’re 100% obsessed with, this Tooting cafe is one of the best spots for brunch in London. And it also serves coffee and an iced latte out of a glass bottle, all of which you can enjoy in their sunny backyard terrazzo.
Aleksandra Boruch
Not your typical mobile home, the King’s Cross branch of Caravan is enormous. It’s part restaurant, part bar, and part roastery. And they have a load of tables outside which are fully covered in case the weather decides to be British while you’re enjoying your coffee.
Sometimes we wish we lived in Primrose Hill for the pastel-coloured houses. Other times we wish we lived there so that we could be within walking distance of this charming cafe. It has some outdoor tables that make it the perfect place to enjoy a cup of coffee and a stack of ricotta and berry pancakes.
Giulia Verdinelli
We don’t know if we can, in good conscience, send someone to Ozone Coffee in Bethnal Green and not tell them to get the smoked fish kedgeree. So yes, head to this spot to drink some of the best coffee in London, but also, get an extremely tasty breakfast too.
Koray Firat
The Allpress roastery on Dalston Lane has an excellent, surprisingly secluded outdoor patio. It’s just about the best spot in E8 to sit with a coffee on a sunny morning.
