Penny Blood's Black Book – My Independent Guide to London - Penny Blood's eclectic collection of favourite places in London to drink coffee, eat cake, have tea, eat out, buy clothes, watch movies, kill time, read Voltaire, quote Baudelaire and write this blog.

Hidden at the back of ‘Vintage Heaven’, a vintage china shop on Columbia Road, is the perfect English tearoom. Then again that is the ‘look’ they’re going for; ‘a perfect English tea room’. They serve good tea and coffee and have a selection of the most delicious cakes (the best stodgy Victoria sponge cake I’ve found to date) bought in specially from the famous Primrose bakery in Primrose Hill all lovingly served on old kitsch china tea sets. It’s only open on weekends so on a nice day it’s advised to get there early as it gets full up and sold out fast. The furniture looks like someone has raided your grandmother’s living room and the walls decorated with a selection of gaudy tapestries I overhear the owner justify as “…we’re going for a ‘Turner Prize look’, individually disgusting but it works altogether”.

http://vintageheaven.co.uk/

82 Columbia Road, Bethnal Green, London, E2 7QB
01277 215968
Saturday 12 noon to 6.00pm Sunday 8.30am to 5.00pm

Related posts:

1. Columbia Road Flower Market
2. Primrose Bakery