Tinderbox
London, United Kingdom
Sunday: 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM
User Reviews
Oh dear. Burnt nasty thin coffee. Dark and depressing interior despite huge windows (how did they pull that off). Harrassed grumpy clueless staff. And it's rammed - utterly rammed. You'll barely be able to get in - which is a blessing. Take it as a sign and walk away.
It's no doubt the influence of the nearby tube station that does it - people willing to shop at the nearby chain stores (the usual forgettable line-up) will drink anything if it's called coffee, it's brown with froth on top and it costs an arm and a leg.
Hmmm. There's not much in the way of decent coffee in Islington and this place is no different. If you're lucky you'll get something drinkable, but there's no guarantee. The way they serve people upstairs is appalling too. There's literally nowhere to stand while you 'wait' for your sit down coffee. Fail. You shouldn't have to wait like a goose at the counter if you're sitting in! To add insult, there's a beautiful old E61 on display downstairs. What a waste
Like • Share • ReportA fabulous space with lots of places to sit and waste a day. Food is average and staff are a combination of rude/useless/under trained/stressed. The coffee, made on mazzers, is occasionally brilliant but more often then not, just better then the high street chains. Worth trying as I hope it returns to the brilliance of 5 to 6 years ago, when it was great!
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Busy Saturday and the staff are stressed and not sure how to get the orders out. Not sure which of the staff are truly baristas. Three of them working the 2 Electra machines at any one time.
The quality of the coffee suffered. The cappuccino had a similar taste to starbucks. Heavily roasted flavour coming through and too much milk and slightly over cooked milk bringing no balance to the flavour.
Tinderbox is on the main street in Islington, not too far from the train station and serving pretty decent coffee on every occasion. They do have a reasonable menu as well, plus a lot of packaged food and drink also ... staff not too friendly (in the trendy sense) but they ARE efficient, so it doesn't really matter.
There are lots of cubby holes to get lost in, from the bar at the front (with huge glass for fishbowl effect) through to little alcoves at the back if you want privacy. Best of all they get a load of newspapers in every day, so if you're needing a fix of the UK's great writing ...
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