Southpaw Coffee

2, ROMAN WAY, N7

AT the top of a green-squared, residential stretch of Islington, between busy Offord Road and the cur-clunk of the Overground, there’s a permanent queue on the pavement.

People wait for coffee, bend to notice dogs and prams and know the staff by name. ‘This is not something we expected,’ said co-owner Orlando James, meaning the local reception, ‘but it’s a beautiful by-product of making room for relationships and for the community to grow. We used to joke that we know our customers by their idiosyncratic coffee orders, but it’s been a wonderful surprise to learn that we now actually know them.’

Southpaw opened in 2019, with Mr James and his co-owner and wife, Charlotte, handing out flat whites from behind a La Marzocco. From the beginning they have ground beans from Routes Coffee, a micro-roastery based in Oxford, and served a small selection of simple, moreish food, such as flapjacks, and cheese-and-tomato toasties (‘The magic is all in the butter-slathered, oregano-dusted crust,’ says Mrs James). There is also a deli selling artisanal producers that Mr and Mrs James have found and loved—slim bars of Bare Bones chocolate from Glasgow, patterned jars of blackberry bramble jam from England Preserves in south London. Jo Rodgers