It’s been a toss up between Sfizio, an authentic Caffe' Bar Paticceria in Holborn or Princi just off Oxford Street. We both indulged ourselves with scrummy Italian pizzas with a crispy thin base and melt in the mouth toppings of Quattro formaggi and parma ham. Stella got so carried away with the taste that she actually forgot the Italian for chilli oil. Luckily the waiter was a fake Italian so he was happy for her to order in English!
After an espresso so strong that it was more of a brush stroke of coffee paste in the bottom of my cup than a drink, we thought we ought to be a bit virtuous and walk off some of the delicious lunch. It wasn’t long before we found ourselves at the tea shop where you can but basically anything connected with tea; leaves, canisters, pots, beautiful cups.
I was seduced by some mulled wine mix that is tucked away amongst the rest of the packing as I speak – hope the sniffer dogs don’t get a whiff of the suspicious looking package...
From here it is just a hop, skip and a jump to Covent Garden. I love Covent Garden and to be honest, I’m not really sure why! I do like the old fashioned market stalls on wheels and I do like the live music, and on this occasion rather dodgy escapologist, but I don’t like inflated prices specifically for the tourists, and the rows of tat surrounding the old market place.
We wandered around the Apple Market and found some fab t-shirts at a not-so-fab price and some tempting Thornton’s Champagne Truffles at twice the normal price so we went off to look at the Disney store too as we are both big kids are heart. The assistant spoke to Stella in Italian and she was really shocked because she thought she’d become quite English – no chance! The hand gestures alone would have alerted a fellow countryman!
It was starting to drizzle, so we decided that high tea was in order and headed through Soho.
I’d forgotten that it was Chinese New Year and the coloured lanterns and intricate dragons adorning all the buildings were really impressive. I have never seen so many Chinese tourists in my life and it was fascinating listening to the mix of languages all mingling together.
We soon found ourselves close to Oxford Street which – as luck would have it – is close to Princi which was our second choice for lunch. Princi is a chain of bakeries from Milan (in fact I am sure I’ve been to that one) that do a whole range of squidgy cakes, delicious savoury breads, salads and pastas to eat in or take away.
It would have been rude to have just tea without at least trying one of the pasticcerie, so we indulged just a little to give us courage for the packed train journey home
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