Bill's Produce Store, Lewes, East Sussex

Bill’s is a greengrocer’s, deli and café in the quaint town of Lewes – the only town with its own currency - that sells both locally grown produce and food made from it. I’d been there once before in winter and really enjoyed it, but sitting at an outside table by a wall covered in ivy in the August sun it was even better. I went with my mum and even though it was a weekday nearly all the tables were occupied when we arrived.

I had smoked mackerel, spinach, grilled tomato and poached eggs on toast which was fantastic. The mackerel was the best I'd had in ages, sweet and not too smoky, and the grilled tomatoes were intensely tomato-y and slightly charred. I meant to take a photo of it when it arrived couldn't resist diving into it first.

My mum had a plate of salads which included shaved fennel and sprouted seeds, Israeli cous cous and a sort of coleslaw with red cabbage. Most of the vegetables and fruit sold at Bill's are grown locally and all of these were really fresh and tasted strongly of themselves.


The bread that came with both these dishes was fantastic - toasted sourdough with mine and, if I remember rightly, olive bread for my mum.

I bought a loaf of sourdough in the shop afterwards and am keen to make things-on-toast: fried tomatoes, sardines, mushrooms, and maybe the smoked mackerel, cheese and cream on toast from Nigel Slater's 'Appetite' book.

The shop attached to the cafe was a greengrocers, Willy Wonka style: piles of vegetables in amazing colours (I particularly liked the yellow and orange beetroot), huges bunches of herbs and dried chillies hanging from the ceiling, and armfuls of wild-looking flowers.

As well as the sourdough I also bought a slice of sheep's cheese called Duddleswell that is sweet, nutty and almost crumbly. The two make a good combination.

Algerian Coffee Stores Ltd

I have only recently discovered Soho as a place for food-related adventures. In the past few years I'd been there once or twice for so-so Chinese food and went to an insalubrious bar, cruelly lured in by the offer of a free shot which turned out to be Ribena.

I started cutting through Soho as a way of avoiding the hell that is the herds of aimless, ambling crowds on Oxford Street, but now go there to gaze in the windows of the Italian delis and sushi bars - window shopping for food.

On Friday, while I was gazing in shop windows at kinky accessories, reading menus posted on walls and adding to my mental lists of restaurants I want to visit I came across a little red shop that smelt strongly of roasting coffee beans. The Algerian Coffee Stores is a Aladdin's cave of all things hot-drink related: huge glass jars filled of dried flowers and herbs for tisanes, tiny Moka pots, wooden drawers with coffee beans roasted to different degrees and the prettiest tins of sweets you've ever seen. Most appealing of all was a large board listing all the different types of coffee and blends on offer.

I couldn't decide between the Lebanese blend (with cardamom) or the Arabic (with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and cardamom). The man behind the counter recommended the Arabic so I went for that one and he set about measuring out a mixture of dark and medium roast beans, grinding them and then adding the ground spices. Then to compound my love for the shop, after I had paid I was offered a dried fig dipped in chocolate to taste: I was completely seduced.

Despite the blend of dark and medium roast beans the coffee is much darker than what I'd been drinking before. The spices work really well, mingling with the aroma of the coffee to create a small and taste that is not quite like coffee or sweet spices something new, and more intriging. It's a coffee that I think is better suited to after-drinking than breakfast, and I can't wait to try it out alongside baklava. Even though six hours have passed since I made the coffee my kitchen still carries a faint scent of a Middle Eastern souk.

Algerian Coffee Stores Ltd, 52 Old Compton Street, London W1D 4BP