From Soho to Your Home: A Walk Through Britain’s Espresso Story

​From Soho to Your Home: A Walk Through Britain’s Espresso Story

Recently, I walked through Soho.

Not as a visitor, but as someone retracing the footsteps of Britain’s espresso history.
For anyone connected to coffee in the UK, Soho is more than a neighbourhood. It is where espresso culture took root, where cafés, roasters, music clubs and theatres created a unique atmosphere that shaped the way Britain learned to drink coffee.
And for Gaggia, Soho holds a particularly important address.

The Beginning: 10 Dean Street
In the early 1950s, Gaggia established its UK office, showroom and service centre at 10 Dean Street.

Today the ground floor is home to Pizza Express and the basement hosts the well-known jazz venue beneath it. But seventy-five years ago this building played a different role.
This was where café owners, restaurateurs and entrepreneurs came to see something new: the Italian espresso machine.

Crates of machines arrived from Milan. Engineers serviced the equipment. Demonstrations showed café operators how the revolutionary lever machines worked and how they produced something unfamiliar to British drinkers at the time — crema.
From this Soho address, espresso began spreading into cafés across London and eventually across the country.

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The Rhythm of Soho

A short walk from Dean Street brings you to one of the most famous coffee addresses in London: Bar Italia on Frith Street.

Even today, customers sit outside enjoying espresso just as they have done for decades.
Directly opposite stands Ronnie Scott's, one of the world’s most iconic jazz venues.
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The pairing feels perfect.
Espresso and jazz.
Pressure and performance.
For generations Soho has been a stage for creativity — in music, theatre, art and hospitality.

Coffee has always been part of that energy.

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algerian coffee store

Established in 1887

A Living Coffee Institution

Just around the corner on Old Compton Street is another landmark: Algerian Coffee Stores.

Established in the nineteenth century and still operating in the same location, the Algerian Coffee Stores remains one of London’s most remarkable coffee institutions.

Walking inside, the experience is unmistakable: the aroma of freshly ground coffee, shelves lined with beans from around the world, grinders humming as customers select their blends.

What is striking is that this independent family business continues to flourish alongside modern global coffee chains.

Along the same streets you will find outlets from Caffè Nero, Costa Coffee and Starbucks.
Yet Algerian Coffee Stores still thrives — a reminder that heritage and craft still have a place in modern coffee culture.
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A Memory from 2002

Extract from an article published in the article in the Observer Food Monthly in 2002

A Memory from 2002

Walking those same streets yesterday also brought back a personal memory.

In September 2002, I was invited to participate in a Soho coffee tasting organised for The Observer Food Monthly.
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Three of us took part in the panel:

• I, Raj Beadle – coffee industry representative
• Mary Banks – food author
• Elvan Carvalho – from the World Coffee Organisation

Together we walked through Soho tasting espresso from a number of well-known coffee venues.

Our judging criteria included flavour, balance, crema and finish.
Among the places we visited were:

• Bar Italia
• Algerian Coffee Stores
• Caffè Nero
• Costa Coffee
• Starbucks

When the results were published, the outcome was revealing.
Bar Italia came out top.
Algerian Coffee Stores followed in second place.
Caffè Nero ranked third.

The result reflected something that coffee lovers already knew: great coffee is not simply about scale or branding. It is about freshness, skill and experience.

What Endures
Standing again in Soho more than two decades later, something became clear.
Bar Italia still stands.

The Algerian Coffee Stores continues to flourish as a family business.
The streets are busier than ever with coffee drinkers.
Soho has changed — as great cities always do — but the core culture remains.
Independent cafés, roasters, music venues and theatres still shape the character of the neighbourhood.

And back in the 1950s, at 10 Dean Street, Gaggia was part of the movement that helped introduce espresso into that world.

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From Soho to Your Home

From Soho to Your Home
Today espresso is no longer confined to cafés.
Machines inspired by those early lever machines now sit on kitchen counters across Britain.

What began in Soho cafés seventy-five years ago now lives in homes, offices and communities across the country.
The journey is remarkable.
From roastery…
to café…
to showroom…
to kitchen counter.
From Soho…
to your home.

You can also listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1fCzwJZgY00p088vthRnUh?si=d3ab2ed9ab5f434e
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P.S.

​The One That Wasn’t There: Angelucci’s

​The One That Wasn’t There: Angelucci’s
There was one place I went looking for — and couldn’t find.
Angelucci’s.

Twenty years ago, just a couple of doors along from Bar Italia on Frith Street, stood a small, deeply atmospheric coffee roaster: Angelucci’s at 23b Frith Street.

The Angelucci family began trading in Soho in 1929 and remained in that very spot for around 80 years. From this tiny shop, they roasted and blended coffee for generations of London cafés. Among their creations was the Mokital® blend — and for decades they supplied Bar Italia from the early 1950s onwards.

Imagine the scene.
Bags of green beans arriving in Soho.
The sound of grinders whirring.
Warm, freshly roasted coffee drifting out into Frith Street.
Espresso in Britain was not just born in cafés — it was born in places like this.
But Soho changes.

In 2009, after rising rents made it difficult to continue, Angelucci’s left Frith Street and relocated to East Finchley. The physical shopfront may be gone, but its imprint remains in the story of Italian Soho.

There’s even a cultural echo.

Mark Knopfler immortalised the name in Dire Straits’ Wild West End with the line:
“Stepping out to Angelucci’s for my coffee beans…”
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That lyric alone tells you how deeply woven coffee roasters were into Soho life.