Monmouth Coffee Company at 2 Park Street in Borough Market is one of the foundations of London’s coffee culture. Founded in 1978 by Anita Leroy on Monmouth Street in Covent Garden, it was pioneering speciality coffee in the UK when instant coffee dominated. It opened its Borough Market stall in 1999 and a shop in a former fruit-and-vegetable warehouse in 2001, helping drive the revival of Borough as a retail food market alongside Brindisa and Neal’s Yard Dairy.
The coffee
Monmouth buys direct from farms and cooperatives in countries including Ethiopia, Colombia, Guatemala and Rwanda, with staff visiting origin, signing long-term contracts and paying above commodity prices. Small-batch roasting of single-origin coffees and espresso blends happens at the Spa Terminus roastery in Bermondsey, with a Saturday retail arch there too. Beans are sold whole or freshly ground.
The Borough shop is rustic, with sacks of green beans and whirring grinders, and the flat whites and filter coffees are outstanding. Several Monmouth baristas went on to found their own coffee businesses, which tells you everything about the training here.
The verdict
Queues go out the door at peak times, and they are worth joining. Monmouth is not chasing trends; it is the place the trends came from. A second shop in Seven Dials, Covent Garden serves the West End crowd.
Photo: Google Maps
