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5 March 2024

What is going on with Caffè Concerto?

The kitsch café chain offers unsettling lessons about London.

By Josiah Gogarty

London sells a lot of things: financial services, legal services, imported American sweets from shops in suspiciously prime locations. It also sells afternoon tea. You can have tea at the Ritz, Fortnum and Mason, the Dorchester or Claridge’s; Sri Lankan high tea at South Bank’s Lyaness cocktail bar; an oyster-heavy “afternoon sea” at the West End’s J Sheekey; tea on a converted Routemaster bus as you tour the sights of London; or on the Bloomsbury Hotel’s “Dalloway Terrace”. In the Shard, you can have normal afternoon tea on the 35th and 32nd floors, and Peter Pan-themed afternoon tea on the 31st.

You can also have afternoon tea at Caffè Concerto – “afternoon” being more of a vibe than a time, as the chain’s Covent Garden branch advertises “afternoon tea available all day” on a sign outside. Caffè Concerto is not something that Londoners usually think about. Its nominally Italian-inspired cafés are packed into the city centre and seem to exclusively serve tourists. The brand is uncannily anonymous. Amid heritage marquees – the dark green and gold of Harrods, the Tiffany-esque blue-green of Fortnum – Caffè Concerto’s browns and golds barely assert themselves.

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