Notes Music & Coffee

Baristas

Serving speciality coffee is a labour of love. The professionalism and skill of our baristas are key to everything we do. Notes baristas have experience, passion and inquiring palates. We invest in training and coffee education, and our people give a lot back in every coffee they serve.

Beans

The best coffee requires the best coffee beans. Our house espresso blend is supplied by Square Mile Coffee Roasters, based in East London. They blend some of the finest beans available, creating a new espresso recipe several times a year as the fresh coffee harvests arrive. The current seasonal espresso is Red Brick, from El Savador, Costa Rica and Honduras. Has Bean, a superb roasting company based in Stafford, keeps our guest espresso hopper topped up. Our goal is to offer an alternative espresso blend, often less suited to milky drinks, to showcase the incredible range of flavours that it is possible to extract from great coffee.

Brew bar

As well as our full menu of espresso-based drinks, Notes also has a dedicated brew bar. This allows us to offer a choice of filter coffees, which we source from Square Mile, Has Bean, and roasteries across Europe. Every morning before we open our doors we spend an hour adjusting the parameters of coffee weight, water volume and grind size to get the coffee to taste the best it can possibly be.

Equipment

Notes was the first coffee shop in Europe to serve espresso from La Marzocco’s latest machine, La Strada. This new technology, developed in Florence, allows us to vary the pressure in real time to extract the fullest possible flavour from the beans. On the brew bar the German-designed Uber Boiler delivers water on demand at the perfect temperature for our filter coffee menu. Downstairs our Reverse Osmosis water filtration system ensures that every drop of water that goes into your drink is as pure as is possible. With London's hard water, we have found that this makes a huge difference to the quality of drinks we serve. At the end of every day we spend over an hour cleaning and caring for our coffee machines and grinders - they deserve it.

Breakfast

Both Notes sites are open from 7am (9am Saturday and 10am Sunday) serving pastries, home-made muffins, toast and granola alongside our speciality coffee and tea.

Lunch

Throughout the late-morning and afternoon, Notes offers sandwiches and salads made to exacting standards on the premises – if you’re looking for something more substantial, we’d suggest a Scrimshaw Pork Pie. Our range of wines by the glass and the bottle is available at both sites at lunch time and throughout the day.

Evening

To support our range of wines by the glass and bottle our chef has created a diverse menu based on excellent produce. A plate of cheese delivered weekly from the caves in France or a board of Italian charcuterie is an excellent accompaniment to a glass of wine (or a coffee) at any time but we have expanded from this to offer terrines, gravadlax, bacalao, bruschetta and other small plates which can either be enjoyed as an early evening pick-me-up or combined to provide something more sustaining. Examples of our evening menus can be found here for Notes Trafalgar Square and Notes Covent Garden

Suppliers

• Charcuterie – The Ham and Cheese Company
• Cheese – Mons Affineurs
• Vegetables – Secretts Farm

Wine has now come to Notes. Our wine list changes every month and alongside perfectly-formed classics from Burgundy and Bordeaux you will also find selections from our Head of Wine that reflect more modern, quirky trends in the world of wine. Wines by the glass change every week and start at around £3.50

Wine List

See our full wine list .

Wines by the glass

We offer 5 whites, 5 reds, a rose, a prosecco and a champagne by the glass at both sites. These change to reflect demand, the time of year and what we think is particularly delicious. We have very good relationships with a handful of small suppliers which allows us to take on ‘bin ends’ at great prices and put them on the ‘By The Glass List’ at very attractive prices. If you’re after the grain rather than the grape, we have Camden Lager, Kernel IPA and Coopers Pale Ale

Our Focus

We are a broad church at Notes. At a time when people seem to narrowing the focus of their wine list, ours is deliberately open. This doesn’t compromise our commitment to quality but it does mean we source wines from all over the world, made in very different ways and in very different climates. Alongside regions and varietals that you will recognise, will hopefully be some you do not and some styles of wine (biodynamic and natural) that you are less familiar with.

Suppliers

• Astrum Cellars
• Aubert & Mascoli
• Bibendum Wines
• Casa Leal
• Enotria
• Gergovie Wines
• Liberty Wines