Sawyer and Gray

Walking into Sawyer & Gray is partly like stepping into a Dickensian novel, and partly like jumping through your screen onto a Pinterest board. Like the black-and-white photographs on display, the colour palette is monochrome – distressed wood and painted white furniture abounds – but it is bright and airy thanks to a skylight above the stairs. The Victorian building is full of little nooks and crannies harbouring vintage household objects (scales, pots and pans, a telephone, a bike) as ornaments, but the best alcoves, though easily missed, are the cosy low-ceilinged booths under archways downstairs.

Although there is internet available during the week, at weekends they observe a ‘no wifi’ policy, trying to encourage you to talk to each other like in the olden days; an ideal place to take an old friend for a catch up over one of their reliable Origin coffees. Five minutes from Highbury & Islington station.