|
|
As an impoverished au pair living in Rome in the mid-1980s my pleasures were few and my salary miniscule. But every morning, once I’d discharged my overindulged Italian brats to their nurseries/schools, I would wander the streets of this ancient city and find somewhere new to sip my morning cappuccino. Some shiny little bar, dispensing potent brown tonics from its gleaming, hissing Gaggia would sing to me, each one its own little universe where worlds would collide – the slickly suited executive with the thick-skinned street sweeper – presided over by some leathery, aged patron. They varied little in decor - a couple of hard stools, formica counter and mirrored back bar tiles was the formula. Each one offered the same rich, scented atmosphere, embellished only with some minor decorative twist or the provision of silver-wrapped Bacis or dry, eggy biscuits. But it was the constant buzz of banter between owner and customers that made each one distinctive – that sense of bonhomie and community as addictive as the bitter brew.
Returning to the UK in 1985, I craved that café culture, and travelled huge distances over London to find those havens that best distilled this continental spirit. There were a few in Soho, one in Clapham, a couple in Islington and Hampstead. But that was pretty much it. In Britain, this was still the era of the ‘greasy spoon’ (all fat frying vapors and builders tea). And among those of us who huddled over our steaming cups and plates of delicate florentines in Patisserie Valerie or Maison Bertaux in Soho there was a kinship. We held the knowledge of this place close to us, like buried treasure – the genuine article – and felt somehow connected with our continental cousins across the channel.
Now the world – from the UK to Shanghai - is crawling with coffee bars. And all of them chains. This most European of rituals has been stripped down and reinvented through the spirit of bland, corporate American mass-production. An essentially European idea has been retuned to fit a greedy, corporate agenda, and we’ve allowed it to happen. Here in the UK, we’ve sat back while the fat cats gobble up the remaining genuine, owner-run cafés as they stride, godzilla-like, up the British high street, transforming each one into anytown anywhere. Nothing about these places is tailored to its neighbourhood or locality.
With continental coffee bars, from Lisbon to Prague, the atmosphere is all about the people who run them, the people whose character shapes the look and feel of a place, the love that they plough into their gaggia-polishing and over-the-counter bon mots, and who deliver up a little piece of soul along with their sandwiches. Thank the lord that, in Amsterdam and Paris they haven’t yet succumbed: you can still absorb something genuinely local, the essence of a neighbourhood, by popping into any of the amazingly diverse independent cafés and bars, most of which have been trading community spirit along with their croissants for decades. In contrast, your spanking new, modern day Costa/Starbucks is staffed exclusively by moody teenage muppets and gap year students who’d rather be watching MTV than passing the time of day with their customers. There’s no banter, no backchat, no welcome. Now imagine this, on a global scale. Imagine there being no alternative!
How can we be so stupid as to have been fooled by this piece of soulless marketing? To pay £3 for a cup of coffee that’s all froth and no substance and then sit in an identikit, soulless space thanking our lucky stars for this slice of outright profiteering! It’s time for the madness to end. The next time you feel like a caffeine hit, make sure you walk a little bit further and patronise that wonderful little Italian-run sandwich bar that’s been going since the 1950s, or the dog-eared Portuguese neighbourhood dive, whose coffees are as fragrant as the caramelised custard tarts gently oozing on the counter, or the café cum gallery space run by that artist collective. Vote with your feet and make your caffeine intake count. Consider it a vital form of community service.
FEEDBACK – want to tell us which is your favourite local café and why! Let’s start the campaign right here.
|
|
