Food & drink
The ConnectionCafe.com menu: espresso, filter, shakes and an all-day kitchen
One menu, served from seven in the morning. Coffee roasted downstairs on a Tuesday, shakes spun by hand, and a short kitchen list we can cook properly rather than a long one we can only reheat.
Before you order
How our menu works
There is no separate breakfast card, brunch card and lunch card. ConnectionCafe.com runs one list all day — the bar pours from 7am, breakfast plates run until 11:30, and everything else is available until the kitchen stops an hour before close.
The menu below is the whole of it: four sections, roughly two dozen items, and nothing on it that we cannot make well on a Saturday at half past one with every seat taken. We would rather serve a short list properly than a long one that falls apart under pressure. If something has sold out, it is because we made it that morning and it is genuinely gone, not because the supplier failed to deliver.
Milk, oat and what the price includes
Whole milk and oat milk are both stocked as standard and both are included in the price. There is no surcharge on oat, there never has been, and there will not be one. Every price here is per item and includes VAT, so what you read is what you pay at the till. Tips are optional and pooled evenly across the bar and the kitchen.
Prices hold across the whole day — a flat white costs the same at 7am as it does at 6pm, and we do not charge differently for sitting in. Take a table for three hours if you need it. We have 62 seats, power at about two-thirds of them and 500 Mbps of Wi-Fi, and we have never once put a timer on a table.
Not sure what to order first?
Order a cortado. It is the drink most of our baristas make for themselves on a break: equal parts espresso and steamed milk in a 5oz glass, small enough that you actually taste the coffee rather than the dairy. If you take it black, ask for the batch filter instead and we will tell you which of the two rotating single origins is on today. If you are here for the sweet end of the bar, the mocha shake is the one that outsells everything else, and the affogato is the one people order after they have watched someone else get it.
Hungry as well? Avocado and soft egg toast in the morning, the guest house toastie in the afternoon. Both are made with bread that arrived at 6am from a bakery four streets away — the only thing on this menu we do not make ourselves.
Behind the prices
Kiln Street No. 4, the blend under almost every cup
Nearly every espresso drink on this menu is pulled on the same coffee: 70% washed Brazil for body and a sweet, cocoa-ish base, 30% Ethiopia for the lift at the top. We roast about 12kg a week on a 5kg drum roaster in the basement, always on a Tuesday, because that is the only morning nobody is needed behind the bar. Nothing goes into a cup more than twelve days after it came out of the drum.
That freshness rule is the single biggest reason a £3.80 flat white here tastes different to a £3.80 flat white elsewhere. Past about a fortnight the sweetness flattens and the finish turns papery, and no amount of barista skill puts it back. It is also why the retail bags at the counter carry a roast date rather than a best-before date — the two are not the same promise.
- House blend: 70% washed Brazil, 30% Ethiopia
- Two rotating single origins on filter, changed every fortnight
- 18-hour cold brew, kegged on site and poured on tap
- Every barista trained to Specialty Coffee Association standards
Our baristas train to Specialty Coffee Association standards, which mostly means they can tell you why today's batch tastes the way it does. Ask them. The longer version — sourcing, roast profiles and what we pay for green coffee — is on our coffee and roastery page.
Eating with us
Allergens, dietary needs and the honest limits
Roughly half the kitchen menu is vegetarian and the vegan options are marked on the board at the counter as well as on this page. Swaps are usually possible — ask, and if the answer is no it will be because the dish genuinely cannot be rebuilt without it, not because it is awkward.
On gluten we are going to be blunt, because the alternative is dangerous. This kitchen handles wheat flour every day. Croissants are laminated here, sourdough is toasted on the same pass as everything else, and the space is small. We can tell you exactly which dishes contain gluten-bearing ingredients and we will take reasonable care, but we cannot offer a coeliac-safe guarantee. If you need one, we would rather you knew before you sat down.
Full written allergen information for all fourteen regulated allergens is kept at the counter and every member of the team knows where it is. If you would like to understand your rights as a customer, the Food Standards Agency sets out what UK venues must tell you and how allergen labelling works. Tell us at the point of ordering rather than at the table, and please tell us even if you think it is minor.
Prices are per item, inclusive of VAT, and correct at the time of publishing. The kitchen list is rewritten with the seasons and the filter coffees rotate every fortnight, so the board at 42 Kiln Street is always the final word. Planning a longer visit? Breakfast at the bar is included for anyone staying in the rooms upstairs, and we write about new arrivals on the bar in the ConnectionCafe.com journal.
Table for one, or for six
The bar opens at seven. Come and eat something.
Walk in for a cortado and a croissant, take the long oak table for the afternoon, or book a table for a group and let us know what you need before you arrive.