The Wren Coffee — Restaurant in London

The coffee is good quality stuff from Caravan but the service is lazy and lackadaisical.. ordered a v60, despite 3 girls being on duty and no other orders it took 2 or 3 minutes to even start brewing it (2 of them were nattering to each other -Mim and another) while a third with a pleasant smile floated around like an angel doing nothing in particular. (Incidentally there was also a 4th girl hunched over a laptop but she did seem to be on a break to be fair to her.) Anyway... it took well over 10 minutes in total before the coffee was served and -surprise, surprise!- it was pretty much lukewarm. This on one of the coldest March days on record btw!! UNACCEPTABLE! The worse thing was having to drink up the pourover coffee in a minute before it got completely cold instead of being able to savour it as one should. Worse was in fact to follow when I tried to extract some information about the coffee I'd just drunk...complete ignorance and bewilderment were the order of the day before the aforementioned 'angel' came along and showed me a bag of the beans: lo and behold! it was the same as they were using for their batch brew, Wote Konga by Caravan- a coffee that one can highly recommend despite the Wren's staff's best efforts! To sum up: maybe on a good day with the right server on duty this is a good place for a v60 - otherwise stick to the other coffee options or, alternatively, try Association Coffee on Ludgate Hill (a more professional outfit) or if you've got time to kill take a trek over Blackfriars Bridge to Coffeeworks Project where they really know what...

Breathing room. sighs While good enough coffee is easy to find in London, staying away from the town’s frantic pace can be quite a hard task in its most dense areas, even when one seeks refuge in cafés. And The Wren is exactly that alternative — a breathing room (after you regain your breath upon entering the breathtaking space of the church it is located in) to enjoy good coffee and cakes and snacks and more, while in The City itself! The young staff seems to take pride in their preparations, and service is efficient without being hurried, and very friendly. Food is simple and unpretentiously good, which can be a plus in a town like London, too. Seems to have vegetarian options everyday. And there’s the striking space itself, of course, permeating all things that happen here. Though there is music, there is so much space that one actually perceives the silence. Natural lights flows in through stained glass (some colorful abstractions contrasting with the golden ornaments on the walls and ceiling). While the dimensions make one feel small, they also enable a subtle and gradual expansion of the senses, and maybe of the spirit too — after all, this is a church that’s still used for its original purpose of helping people realize a different dimension to life. A place to be thoroughly enjoyed, where one feeds...

The Wren café, which I visited last week, is an island of tranquillity in an exceptionally busy part of London. It is close to St Paul’s cathedral and the Millennium Bridge. I considered myself lucky in London to have found somewhere peaceful and with excellent coffee and cake to restore myself after having visited the Cheapside horde at the Museum of London. It is clearly a new venture as they were assembling tables for the outside terrace when I arrived. There was a range of interesting cakes of varying sizes and the sandwiches were huge, although I’m afraid that I was only able to find room for a large slice of cake. The stylish sage green coffee cups made the reasonably priced coffee taste even nicer. The staff were all very friendly and helpful. It was also very clean and comfortable. The stained glass windows of this restored early Wren church were colourful and added to the elegant atmosphere and the experience. There were some beautiful touches such as the wooden counter with a hand carved wren (the bird) on it. There was a table set aside with jugs of water one with fresh mint leaves in it another with slices of orange etc. The toilets were an architectural experience one of which was formally used to store swords in while the services were on. I will definitely visit the café again when I am in...