The Borough Barista

For all that is great and good in Marylebone, coffee is surely a weak point. At one extremity, there is Workshop Coffee’s Wigmore Street outlet, and now at another, there is The Borough Barista. 

Neither are particularly handy to the main drag, where the prospect of now two Nordic Bakery locations are about the best it gets.

Or the Chiltern Rooms, which is never open. Providores if you're eating, granted, Rumours of Monocle Café are still just that, although the old restaurant opposite Midori House has had a lot of builders in. 

So a good place anchoring ‘Seymour Village’ is bound to be a winner surely? Well the initial signs are good – strong design, a newspaper sellers’ chalkboard with coffee proclamations, clean, fresh interior and a lovely outdoor seating area. So far so good.

The service is friendly too. But the coffee just wasn’t up to much. I ordered a Long Black, which any place worth its salt in 2012 knows is different to an Americano. Shorter, stronger, no danger of milk. What was automatically made was a large sized Americano (sold at the higher price – without asking) which was subsequently too weak. 

The beans were their own, and weren't particularly flavourful at any end of the spectrum, due to the poor execution. Dull ceramics too I thought, which is an easy win usually.

The selection of goodies to eat was tempting, but at about £4 for a cheese and tomato croissant, I gave it a swerve. Much of the money round here won’t even look at the prices, so marks for opportunism I suppose.

A shame really, and while I would not write it off on one bad coffee, that one experience was poor. Seymour Place is a quintessential inner London street, with a burgeoning foodie scene comprising of Donostia, Sandy’s Corsican Pizza, Vinoteca and a couple of decent pubs.

If this enclave continues to flourish (Marylebone has the most discerning landlords in the country) then this place will become quite prominent. I hope then that the quality will then match the potential.