Fleet River Bakery

Very very good coffee, and excellent breakfast. Always hit it before work, whether it is the yoghurt mix they have, or the eggs benedict, they are always fantastic!

Excellente adresse pour un brunch londonien. On a particulièrement apprécié les benedict eggs, les thés chai, les gâteaux maison. Situé dans une petite rue, cette adresse n’est pas évidente à trouver.

came by for coffee and cake on a sunny saturday afternoon — the carrot cake was overly delicious and my americano was also great, very strong and they gave me free soy milk to go with it. overall a great great place to go for coffee and cake i’d say. just a tiny bit pricey, 4 pounds for a slice of cake is quite a lot but okay for a weekends treat.

Always drop in after school and always can find some adorable food. I’ve been an enthusiast of their perfect scones.

Been here a couple times now. Depending on time of day there’s a bit of choreography involved in finding a seat (do that first), placing your order at one order and paying for it, and picking up your coffee at another counter (or they can bring it to you, sometimes). But if you manage all three, you can count on being able to sit there as long as you want. Yesterday a girl had massive notes spread out all over a table and I think ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner there :-)

Great food, hidden seating occupied by way too many people just working there for hours.
Also, not enough options for vegetarians.
Great coffee tho !

This is a lovely little café sitting at the top of Lincoln Inn Fields, at the mouth of the alley that spits students and lawyers out towards the Holborn tube stop. The crowd is a mix of LSE students and staff and local workers, peaking at lunchtime when lines snake out the door. Don’t let that deter you, though, because the café has a large back room and even a basement with intimate two-​tops and a great big communal table. It’s perfect for bunkering down (literally underground) with a laptop or book. Staff don’t bother you once you’ve paid for your food, and the wifi is free and fast. Students get a 10% discount if you show your card too.
Onto the food: Every day they switch up a different selection of salads, sandwiches, a toastie, a soup and numerous desserts tempting you from behind a glass case. The salads are super fresh and the portions decent. Desserts include massive scones, freshly baked cakes, and if you’re truly blessed, banoffee pie. Don’t hesitate, just ask for a fat slice and take it downstairs to inhale. It’s so good I kept on lying to my companion about how bad it was so she wouldn’t have any.
All in all, a great study/​work café in Holborn and a top purveyor of crack pie.

It’s a very popular venue, there’s no doubt about that. Every time I’ve gone to FRB (about 5 times so far), the service has been utterly appalling. Every time I think, «it’ll be better than last time», it never is. I can’t get past it so I’m not going to give it another go.
Coffee is good but overpriced.

Friends keep dragging me here, so I’ve been a couple of times over the last few months. The main thing I want to say is that the pricing of their coffee is ridiculous. I paid 3.30 for a soya latte which is the size of a generous double espresso. Soya milk is not expensive enough to warrant a 50p surcharge. I could get literally four times the amount of coffee for the same price at a café chain. Good coffee is important but not important enough for these sorts of prices. The staff have also been less than friendly most times I’ve been here, and the seating is atrocious — barely any tables and rarely cleared of dishes. In winter, their back room is unbelievably freezing. I really wanted to like this place because the cakes are good, but unfortunately the combination of London pricing and very little value isn’t really acceptable.

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to find this place. My friends and I were browsing Unilocal for a quick lunch and after scrolling some number of pages we came across Fleet River Bakery. We were pretty convinced by the photos so we decided to give it a try.
I first of all really like the location of this place — it’s right off a busy road which means it’s super accessible but also lets you escape the chaotic lunch scene typical on Kingsway. When we got there there at around 1 pm there was already a line, but thankfully it moved super quickly. After finding out that a lot of what I wanted was «sold out,» I decided to go for the salad. They let you mix different salads together here — which I thought was really nice since you get a nice variety — so I got to try their giant couscous salad, beetroot salad, and summer rice salad. I’m happy to say I thoroughly enjoyed all of them! Although one of them had goat cheese, which I wasn’t a fan of…(not a fan of cheese, in general). The balance between natural flavor and seasoning/​dressing was perfect, which is actually really hard to find — most places tend to overdo the dressing, in my opinion. But I thought this place nailed it, and the vegetables tasted fresh too — I especially loved the beetroots!
Overall I really enjoyed the food here. The minus one star is only because they ran out of so many of their menu items so quickly. Maybe next time I’ll be able to go earlier! Given my experience here today, I’m sure I won’t be disappointed.

I’ve been meaning to try this place for a long time. The menu always looks fresh and tasty, and long queues are normally a good indication.
So I picked up a half sandwich and soup of the day for lunch and was a bit disappointed to be honest.
The spinach and coconut soup was lovely with a nice kick of spice. The chicken, crème fraîche, rocket and «caramelised» onion baguette was a let down. My use of inverted commas says it all. You can’t refer to your onions being caramelised if they’re still white and retain a bit of crunch! A little thing admittedly, but an eye for detail separates the good from the great.
The bread itself was awesome though.

I’ve eaten a variety of salads here. Tastes great every time. Minus one star because cashier wasn’t friendly. I tried to pay by card but was short by 20p the minimum required to use the card machine. He asked if I wanted to add a cake to the bill. I said no, actually I can pay by cash. Then he just glared at me as if I was supposed to buy a £3.20 slice of cake to get 20p more. I don’t enjoy being pressured to buy stuff.

Très bonne petite boulangerie ! Vous etes à Londres et en proie à une soudaine envie de jambon beurre parisien mais etes malgré tout très très méfiant sur la possibilité de trouver votre bonheur dans les terres du fish and chips… Et pourtant. Fleet River Bakery m’a vendu un jambon beurre irréprochable (vrai beurre, jambon de bonne qualité et surtout super baguette !!) et je vous conseille vraiment d’y faire un tour. Ils font aussi des sandwichs plus originaux et recherchés — également bons selon mes amis.
En plus, l’endroit est trés joli, la déco est ravissante. N’y allez pas à l’heure de pointe, c’est très prisé par tous les étudiants de la LSE.

Brilliant little café. At lunch time there is a queue for this places food out the door. Their lunches are things of beauty. They have frittata, salads, sometimes even pie. They seem homemade and are always generous with portions. Their salads are divine and beautifully made. Moving into cake., their polenta cake which is orange and honey is gorgeous. It is beautiful. I have also been there after work for a drink. Great wine and was able to have a slice of that cake! They have great seating outside and a cute arrangement inside. Two shops into one via a staircase that goes down in one shop and comes up into the other. They have great tables in the other shop. It’s very communal, you find a seat on a big table and sit down. Often find people doing work there on their laptops enjoying a beautifully made coffee or a glass of wine.
Great atmosphere and a beauty for a quite drink after work or a lunchtime takeout of cake and coffee.

Always tempted to pop in as its on the way to work, but I find myself disappointed with the cakes. I’ve tried a few things and whilst they are ok, for the quality, I think they are a little overpriced.
Not had a chance to try the brunch, so will definitely be back to try that, but leave my cake buying to somewhere else.

This place is very cute and rather spacious for book clubs (my main priority, natch ;)
Some of the brekky fare seems a lil overpriced, like the full English, but I got a veggie sausage sandwich which was great value at £3.90. Also got a yummy side of potatoes.
My dining companion was in ecstasy over the eggs hollandaise so it looks like that’s worth a try next time. I also love the fact that this place was kinda tucked away from the main thoroughfare which means it’s not unpleasantly busy. I was eyeing up the squashed-​but-​crunchy-​looking (apparently intentionally-​so) almond croissants so will deffo return for those!

If you walk into this café and don’t see any free seats, don’t despair! The front room is just the beginning, with a bigger room in the back and another one (with cooler chairs) downstairs. The coffee was decent and the people were friendly. It was a nice place to while away a rainy afternoon. The food looked good too. Fleet River Bakery is definitely in the running for becoming my local café.
Accessibility note: to get to the back room, you have to go down a few stairs and back up. The toilet is also downstairs, so if you have mobility issues, you’re left with the front room and holding your bladder.

GREAT cakes and hot chocolate. Coffee is only OK, though. Haven’t been impressed by flat whites or the mochas.
Quite a lot of seating, though, so that’s really good if you want to sit down, chat or read. Just be prepared to queue for a bit during lunch hours…

Updating from my old review…
Still great lunch menu that changes daily.
Unfortunately, their baked goods can be hit and miss. Often have had dry brownies or burnt cupcakes…

A pleasant moment here.
Even the order process is a bit strange, first order and and pay at the main counter. They give you a number, you can go to find a table, your food will be served directly to you. Except… the drinks! So I waited 15 minutes to get my drinks, until l realized you have to go to pick it at a different counter…
Luckily I love their food, perfect toasted sourdough bread topped a nice poached egg. and a really great carrot cake!
The terrace is great when sunny, but it be windy if you seat on the right side of the shop.
Loved the atmosphere, location is nice, but they don’t really have a seating area next to the counters. A huge space is available downstairs, when the weather is nice, I would prefer to see the natural light.

Fleet River Bakery is interestingly named, since I almost never think of them as an actual bakery.
Oh sure, they bake, and they have some desserts, but they’ve never overly impressed me (they’re fine, laid out in kind of a hodge-​podge kind of manor with handwritten hard to read signs. The cookie I had once was pretty good.)
But no, this a café, hands down, and a charming one at that.
Great sandwiches, great salads, great coffee, friendly staff. It’s a small shop but if you can get something to eat here and take it to go (or sit in the bottom level), you are a happy guy. Just note what every other reviewer has ever said — they move so slow you can feel the line growing behind you and it takes forever. But my god is it worth it.
One of London’s hidden spots… even if it will never really be a bakery to me.

Nice little place discovered by my mama and passed onto me for future London adventures. We visited on a Saturday and, despite my mother’s best intentions (i.e. dragging me down an alleyway) we managed to find it a-​okay.
Atmsophere instantly hit me as very Northern Quarter Manchester; small but friendly, lots of wood around, and a seating arrangement that makes you become best friends with everyone around you. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but it really does make the best out of the small space Fleet River has to work with. Service was okay, a bit slow considering it wasn’t very busy when we popped in, and the small layout doesn’t do the queuing any favours. I had some boring tea, not a coffee drinker just yet, and a jammy flapjack. Now, I don’t enjoy blowing my own trumpet, but I make some damn good flapjacks and seem to have potentially spoiled myself into never being able to eat them from a coffee shop ever again. Sadly, my square of oaty goodness was solid and the jam all clumped into one area. Anyone who reads my reviews knows I enjoy a good sugar rush and this gave me just that, just a hard lumpy one.
I am drawn between 3 and 4 stars as I am sure I’ll visit again as the atmosphere was great but my choice of cake was a bit of a let down. Lesson learnt, I’ll just have to try everything else on the menu.