Cool coffee: London's first members only coffee shop

Feel the need to take your coffee drinking to the next level? This members-only co-working café is the place to do it, says Phoebe Luckhurst
Cool guy: barista and manager Per Svensk (photo: Rebecca Reid)
Rebecca Reid

Once upon a time, slurping a cappuccino felt thrillingly trendy; now, a coffee is a part of most routines, most days. Trendsetters moved onto filter batches and Aeropressed blends — but now the mainstream threatens to swallow those too. McDonald’s hasn’t quite cottoned onto the flat white but it surely can’t be long.

What can the elitist do? Yesterday you saw that middle-aged, kindly faced neighbour — the one who wears Crocs and gave her cats human names like Samantha and Alexander — holding a takeaway coffee cup from your own #trending local joint. It’s over. You could despair, or you could join London’s first private member coffee club, SL28, which is based on the site of Holloway co-working space Net.Works.

The complex opened officially last night with a launch party populated by worker bees from “technology and property start-ups, investors, aspiring entrepreneurs, financiers and people working in food and drink,” explains co-founder Tania Adir. You can opt to join Net.Works or just SL28. It costs £10 per month for membership of the latter, which gives you as much coffee as you want and somewhere to hang out.

Illuminating: a sleek design (photo: Rebecca Reid)
Rebecca Reid

Obviously, there are conceptual lampshades and exposed bulbs hanging from the ceiling, and the bar is hewn from rough wooden pallets. The groomed clientele working there on a Thursday morning look like they definitely subscribe to Monocle — exactly the sort of influential Islington movers and shakers to whom Per Svensk, SL28’s “barista, chef, manager”, hopes to be dishing up filter coffee. Svensk, a towering Swede in hipster threads who moved to London three years ago, is the fevered coffee brain behind SL28, which is so-called after a type of bean that is very highly regarded by the industry’s geekiest connoisseurs. Svensk serves SL28 and other blends, many of them sourced from an artisan Swedish roastery.

Why does London need SL28? “[London] is an excellent platform because of the coffee culture here being non-existent until a few years ago,” he says thoughtfully. “Monmouth Coffee started out some time in the Seventies, but since then a lot has happened. It’s been a good platform for chains, but that just sparks the interest in people’s minds. From there,you notice you can pay a little extra and actually get something very special. Besides the chains taking off, there are new branches [of independent shops] opening every day.” He explains that SL28’S bottomless refills go down very well with the co-working clientele.

Svensk reckons he has about 10 members so far. “Every time someone comes in, I take down their name and their email address for the mailing list.” He then delivers missives about coffee — beans and blends he’ll be trialling — and will also keep them up to date with the rotating menu, which at the moment is of his own making (hence the appellation “chef”) but will eventually be catered by third-party foodies.

Arty: extra special coffees (photo: Rebecca Reid)
Rebecca Reid

Obviously, he’s a coffee nerd: he found caffeine when drinking “really good coffee” in Sweden. There, the Scandis are all about filter brews — a trend that is making its way to London. Svensk is earnest about production methods: “It comes down to the water quality, stable temperature and the machinery you use, the freshness of the coffee and who has roasted it. And it’s very much about getting the grind right and the way it works best for that particular coffee. It’s very restrictive but still incredible the number of things that can be fine-tuned: it never gets boring.” He goes through batches to filter out “bad beans”, to “make sure no rotten egg goes in the omelette”. But he admits that even the self-selecting elite at SL28 will ask for a flat white.

“With the boom of the flat white, it doesn’t even matter what the idea behind it was any more because it’s turned into a latte or a cappuccino: something you ask for because of the name,” he says mournfully. He tries to eke something bespoke out of these orders by asking people if they want it stronger, or with more milk, delivering a sort of gentle education by stealth.

“The membership isn’t expensive and the offering is unique,” proffers Net.Works’ other founder, Gal Adir. “A lot of people go into coffee shops and have a coffee and feel uncomfortable staying — how appropriate is it to sit for an hour nursing one coffee? This gives people a chance to come in for an hour and continue with their day.”

“At some point it will be difficult, as we’ll be too busy,” sighs Svensk. “I hope [just] to fill the bar.” At which point, presumably, membership will be capped, preserving the exclusivity and keeping the cool-hunters happy. McDonald’s can’t get its mitts on this.

Find it: 25-27 Horsell Rd, N5 1XL; net-works.london

Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in