[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—To Mr. John Oxendon
and other Americans who wish to find good coffee in London, I would say, avoid certain
of the best hotels (where some of the world's worst coffee is made) and patronize some of the popular restaurants and the less expensive hotels. The coffee in these places is uniformly excellent—strong and fragrant—because it is fresh and made according to an invariable recipe.
My experience as a confirmed coffee-drinker and con- noisseur is that French coffee is much overrated. I have had as good coffee in England as in America, and better than in France. Recently I lunched in a charming, newly opened restaurant in a draper's shop where the coffee was so delicious that I sent for the manageress to find out where it was bought. She told me that it was freshly ground each day from the famous old shop in the Strand through which Oliver Goldsmith used to take a short cut from Dr. Johnson's house to his chambers in Brick Court.
What Americans miss in English coffee is cream, which, added to hot milk, gives the richness unknown to English coffee drinkers. But cream in jugs is rarely served in England.
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