Look Mum No Hands!

I come here to work on the weekends. I get to sit down for a yummy breakfast (museli please!). No internet on weekends from 11am-​4pm during brunch service, but I find its a good opportunity to disconnect. I’ve also come here on weekdays and I love the salads :)

The atmosphere is the best thing about this place (look mum no) hands down!
I’ve brunched, wined and coffeed here (not all at once, I’m no glutton) and the place lends itself to all three.
I recommend the brunch — very big portions and the eggs were on point. It’s a great place to read and work too.

The Mare Street branch of «Look Mum No Hands!» is more about coffee than about bikes, but that’s OK. I live in West London and cheated by taking the train — the wrong one as it turns out, it’s quite a trek from Hackney Central … back by bus and Bethnal Green tube, but London Fields would probably have been the best/​nearest solution.
I wish this was my local, though, as it combines everything I like about a good hangout. Loads of space to give you privacy for casual meetings (high density of MacBooks as seems to be the norm all over East London coffee shops these days), and I actually like the fact that staff are extremely laid back — noone to make you feel rushed or unwelcome.
I spent several hours here the other day and was delighted to spot an impressive salad bar — imaginative salads are my weakness and tend to be rather overpriced. They charge £5.50 for a small plate but you are not limited to the number of different salads — the portions are quite generous and allowed a good taste of everything on offer.
Another place to make me want to move to the other side of town.

Things I love about Look Mum No Hands:
+Great coffee served in cute takeaway cups (King of the Mountains red dotty)
+You can always get a table
+Good décor
+Excellent food
Things I don’t love quite so much about Look Mum No Hands:
–Very average service
–Wonky tables
–Cavernous space so can be loud
Look Mum No Hands is approximately three minutes walk from my flat, so I’m a pretty regular visitor (mine’s a takeaway flat white to drink whilst I walk to the tube at Bethnal Green). Takeaway coffees, or coffee to drink in with a slice of cake is what LMNH excels at.
They also do bigger plates and we’ve been there for brunch a few times recently. The food is always excellent, and if I was reviewing on that alone I’d have no problem giving four or five stars, however the service always lets it down.
In no particular order we’ve had: cold coffee delivered (and replaced when asked– but with no apology), items forgotten (no salmon with the salmon, avocado and egg breakfast), breakfasts arriving at dramatically different times (i.e. one person was finishing their breakfast as the other one had theirs delivered). Although not ideal, none of these things are dealbreakers– it’s the attitude which accompanies it which annoys me. There’s never an apology for anything that’s gone wrong– and you always have to follow everything up yourself (usually because ALL of the staff are behind the serving counter, chatting and drinking coffee).
Come on Look Mum No Hands– I love that you’re a small business, and you show cycling races on a big screen, and you serve delicious food and coffee, but please, please sort the service out!

Another branch for the awesomely named popular cycle café! I’ve been meaning to go to the one near where I live for a while now, yet this is the first one I happen to visit.
They serve 3 beers from keg and in addition a decent selection of bottles. Went for Weird Beard — Hit the Lights on keg, which turned out to be an excellent choice. Bought some corkers crisps to snack on, which were rather expensive.

I’m going to borrow from this blog post on the café opening (
) and say: LOOK MUM! ANOTHER ONE!
A great bike café has another location — whoopee!
Open on July 1 of this year (Canada Day; coincidence? I choose to think not!), this is a big space. Like, almost cavernously large? However, great for watching Tour de France 2013 on the big screen. And drinking iced lattes. And eating Guinness chocolate cake (you read right: yes). And eating fresh salads, and banana bread with cinnamon butter, and so on and so forth.
The brew is strong, the staff are *rad* and the design of the place delights. It’s not «cozy» as much as it is work friendly. And, let the record show: grab-​a-​takeaway-​and-​take-​to-​London-​Fields-​friendly, too.
Unilocal note: this place gives you *no good reason* not to bike right on over… they even provide loan locks for your ‘cycle!