Fig Tree Cafe, Highbury & Islington
Finding secret gardens wherever I go.
It looked like it was going to rain, which was annoying, because I’d left my umbrella at my friend’s house. I found my way to where I was supposed to be joining my American Cider Association class, but I was 45 minutes early—it either takes half an hour longer to get somewhere in London, or considerably less time than you expect—so I did what any sane person does at 8am on a Wednesday, and I went looking for a decent cup of coffee.
My version of decent is different to yours. My husband Tom loves third-wave coffee, all acid and balance, that to me always tastes like peaches and apples left to rot in the fruit bowl. I like dark coffee, coffee that smells like full-roasted Italian breakfast beans, that pours the colour of liquorice, and tastes somewhere between dark chocolate and burnt toast. After breakfast I like it black, but early in the day I want milk in there, a touch of creamy, almost vanilla froth to set me up for the morning ahead.
The clouds held, and I walked down the arterial road that leads east from Highbury & Islington to Dalston looking for a café that looked good enough to stop for. I like to think I can tell if the croissants in the windows were frozen. I don’t tend to visit places with strong branding aimed at future franchising. At the corner of St. Paul’s Road I saw it: Fig Tree Cafe. Wooden, strewn with Mediterranean bric-a-brac, and dark enough inside to illicit a deep sense of curiosity, I crossed the road and entered through the open door.
It’s Greek in spirit, you can tell from the profusion of fresh vegetables and produce in the butty shop display counter that takes up most of the first room. It smells of fresh baking and house plants. I feel like I’m in a grandparent’s home, visiting someone who wants me to sit down and eat. I’m not wrong.
“A coffee for you?” the owner asks, adding, “You look like you’re in a rush. Only coffee is fast.”
I asked about the breakfasts he makes, and he says no. “I don’t make it quickly.”
That’s okay, I say. I’ve got time. He shrugs, and leads me to the rear of the tiny cafe into a second dining area, and then a conservatory, and then an outdoor terrace bursting with verdant green only a passionate vegetable gardener can achieve. On a blackboard were some of the most ideal-sounding brunches I’d ever seen. Before I can choose, he picks the avocado on toast for me, and tells me to sit. Again, he asks if I’d like coffee. I must look tired, because I am. Yes, please. Definitely.
He leaves me to explore the paintings and pottery and furniture, and I wander, carefully looking at everything as though I’m in a museum. The wooden decking of the outdoor space is not as creaky as I imagined (I have a fear of falling through, I’ve seen too many Instagram reels), so I take a seat under the heavy pergola of grape vines, sheltered from any passing showers that might come over. My coffee is brought to me—dark and frothy, a perfect cup—and I dunk a homemade almond biscuit into it while admiring the courgettes growing vigorously in a little window box balanced precariously on the edge of the platform. There is life everywhere. A magpie is chattering in the trees above. I can hear two restaurant workers further down the street panicking about a lack of mayonnaise. A train goes past totally hidden from view at the end of the lot. In my little garden, I feel like I’m spying on the rest of the city, secret and invisible in a cocoon of leaves.
My new friend brings my breakfast to me, a pile of fresh, silky avocado barely crushed, on top of crusty bread studded with black olives. A wealthy side salad opens my eyes to new opportunities—a breakfast salad? Why have I never done this before? Everything is doused in greenly-glinting olive oil that tastes like how I imagine gold must taste as it melts on the tongues of gods. I try to savour it, to spend more time in this pocket of serenity, but before I know it my plate is clean, and my coffee is gulped. I have to return to the dirty streets.
Inside again, I thank my host for the beautiful meal, and he complains that I didn’t spend long enough relaxing in the garden. I promise him I’ll be back, and I’ll spend all afternoon there. That he won’t be able to get rid of me. He smiles, I tap my card, and then he hands me another homemade almond cookie—a kavala, maybe?—in a napkin “for the road.” I eat it on my way to my engagement, thrilled to have been cared for so beautifully in a city I consider cold, that I’m often scared to visit. Food, coffee, biscuits, and kindness. They can be found anywhere. Even in London.
Other Stuff
Firstly, the incomparable Claire Bullen on finding calm, nature and green spaces in London on her long walks and foraging journeys around the capital
Rachel Hendry’s essential beer and crisp pairings
“Things have to happen”, an illuminating critique on the state of literary fiction by Heather Parry
A look at memories as content, and treading the line between observations and making-up-stories from Amelia Tait
Dining alone isn’t sad, it’s hot, says Slutty Cheff for Vogue
That looks and sounds lovely 😀