What's coming to the autumn menu
We start thinking about the autumn menu in July, which always feels slightly absurd when the sun is still warm and the windows are open. But pastry timelines don't wait for the mood to feel right. By the time the first conkers fall, we need to already know what's going in the oven.
Here's what's coming when the season turns.
Cardamom pear cake
This one has been in the test kitchen since April. A dense, moist single-layer cake with poached pears through the batter and a cardamom-brown sugar crust on top. We've gone through eleven versions — adjusting the spice level, the pear variety, the fat ratio. Version eleven is very good. We're fairly sure version twelve will be the one we serve.
It pairs, predictably, with the cardamom flat white. We weren't trying to make a matching set, but here we are.
A new pourover: Rwanda Nyamasheke
Theo brought back samples from a coffee trade event in London and pushed them across the cupping table without saying anything. The tasting notes hit black tea, apricot jam, and something almost floral — hibiscus, we decided, though nobody agreed entirely. We're bringing in the first bag in September.
"It tastes like the good version of the thing you imagined when you first started drinking specialty coffee."
It'll be on the pourover bar as a rotating single origin. Ask Theo about it — he'll want to tell you everything.
The spiced chai cold brew is back
We put this on the menu last autumn as an experiment and it outsold everything except the flat white by the second week. Eighteen-hour cold brew concentrate, steeped with our masala chai spice blend, served over ice with a small amount of sweetened condensed oat milk swirled in.
It is not a subtle drink. We stand by it entirely.
What's leaving
The elderflower lemonade (it was lovely, but very specifically summer), the peach and ricotta tartine, and the lavender shortbread. All of them will be back when the season comes around again.
The full autumn menu launches the last week of September. Come in and tell us what you think.