Park Life

We wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t expect great coffee from a park café – but things are changing, as Phil Wain discovered when he toured London’s green spaces

- Phil Wain

Parks and other green spaces provide much-needed relief from the intensity of urban life. London is particularly well served, from the large Royal Parks (often former royal hunting grounds) to churchyards and smaller pockets of public space around the city, often complete with playgrounds, bandstands and cafés. Not so long ago, a park café meant a pot of tea and a slice of cake – and pity you if you risked a coffee (usually commodity grade with extra hot milk). Now that is beginning to change.

Park pioneers

Rob Green and Brett Redman opened Pavilion in east London’s Victoria Park in 2008, where they were one of Square Mile’s very first customers – co-founder James Hoffmann used to deliver the coffee on a bicycle. Rob and Brett’s impeccably sourced and tasty food and coffee earned Pavilion a fabulous reputation. Although Brett has moved on and Pavilion has recently switched to Origin coffee, this continues to be the place to be on a sunny summer day – there can be few more attractive park café settings than Pavilion’s glass dome beside the boating lake.