Thick plastered posters and bright advertisements line the vertical surfaces of the short and winding streets of London’s Shoreditch neighborhood. Many lanes without street signs makes it difficult, even for seasoned Londoners, to find their way around without checking the map. The density, diversity and age of London’s neighborhoods creates visual collages uniquely and expertly traversed by London’s busy populace, now more than 8.3 million.
Writer Steven Johnson has written about creativity and the birth place of new ideas, (find his ted talk here), and he suggests a specific 16th century coffee house in London was responsible not only for switching Londoners from medieval mead to caffeinated beverages, but also for bringing on the period of the Enlightenment. The humble coffee house stands as a cultural crossroads. The influx of caffeine surely helped, but creativity was nurtured by the various walks of life coming together in a public space to solve problems, leading to those incredible Eureka moments.
Barber & Parlour

Natural cafe culture in London is about being connected to your setting and to your devices— equally. The wonderful and rustic Barber and Parlour at 64 Redchurch Road in Shoreditch is a fine example of this seamless and modern mixing chamber. The bright and sunny cafe is tucked away up a set of wide wooden stairs. The cafe wouldn’t be seen from the road unless one glanced up to see the textbooks and lamps lining the window sills of the second floor. The entrance divides its space between an espresso and cold-pressed juice bar, and a general store carrying finely crafted merchandise from wool sweaters and gardening trowels to copper light fixtures and wooden glasses. The cafe tables sit in the center of the large room where fresh breakfast and lunch is served. It took us a moment to notice that a barber’s station with three leather backed chairs sat in one corner, nicely partitioned off with a set of wooden shelves lined with glass jars of provisions and equally comforting ephemera.
Ace Hotel Shoreditch Lobby – Photo by Andrew Meredith, courtesy of Ace Hotel
Baby & Company.