Picture of Perfect Blend, SW16 1EQ

Perfect Blend, SW16 1EQ

Café-bar-restaurant in Streatham Hill, a couple of minutes' walk from Streatham Hill Station.

It's an open space, with large windows looking across Streatham High Road. There's a bar with keg taps on one side and a food/coffee/tea counter at the back. It seats about 60, mostly inside, some out on the pavement. The interior seating includes some sofas and armchairs with lowish tables, a banquette running along one wall, and normal freestanding chairs and tables.

Rowley Birkin QC visited on a Saturday in May 2019. There were about 30 other customers in mid-afternoon, and by early evening this had dropped to 10-15. The staff were friendly. I didn't try the food, but an espresso and a tea were both fine. Pop music was playing; although it wasn't too loud, I still found it irritating.

When Kake visited on a Tuesday morning in November 2019, there were half a dozen other customers at 11:30 am (two of them working on laptops like me) and others arrived while I was there. Music was more peaceful than pop this time, and I didn't find it got in the way. A pot of English breakfast tea (£3) was fine — loose-leaf, with a little basket to remove the leaves when brewed to taste — though the cup was the annoying kind where the handle is too small to put your fingers through. A plain croissant (£1.80) had a crisp exterior, soft interior, and a good flavour despite the lack of butter and jam.

There is an open WiFi network available. In May 2019, it was necessary to supply an email address and phone number for this (but these could be fake); however, in November 2019 Kake got in without any need to enter these details. It kept dropping out in May 2019, but was fine in November of the same year. There are at least four plug sockets, though possibly all clustered in one place.

Rowley Birkin QC's verdict (with which Kake agrees): A civilised place, good for dropping in if you want a coffee or something for half an hour or so.

Child-friendliness: They have at least two high chairs (the type with no tray and very little back support). There's a pull-down baby changing table in the ladies', but nothing in the gents'. A few children of various ages were present on the Saturday afternoon and Tuesday morning when we visited.

Accessibility: A step of about 10 cm to get in, otherwise level.

See also:

Last visited by Kake, November 2019. Opening hours taken from the Perfect Blend website, June 2019.
OS X co-ord: 530287 OS Y co-ord: 172631 (Latitude: 51.437702 Longitude: -0.126910)
Last edited 2023-09-05 13:35:01 (version 6; diff). List all versions.