Nine London venues have been shortlisted in the ‘coffee shops’ section of the London lifestyle awards.   Curiously, not all of them are specialist coffee shops as such – some of them are waffle shops and patisseries, but what they all have in common is good coffee.

Among the familiar names in the shortlist are Bar Italia, the great Italian espresso bar in Soho which celebrated its 60^th year in business in 2009, and Sacred, one of the leaders in the New Zealand wave of cafes in the capital. In the rest of the list are The Haberdashery, the extremely quirky Crouch End venue which says ‘our food is served on mismatched vintage dishes, our coffee bowls are stacked higgledy-piggledy on the espresso machine, and our wall is decorated with a mosaic of Victorian fireplace tiles’, Wafflemeister (whose speciality speaks for itself), Patisserie Valerie, Napket (which uses the slogan ‘snob food’),  Konditor & Cook (a cake specialist),  Jack’s Tea & Coffee House (with the motto ‘eat, drink, and be merry, tomorrow we can diet’), and Benugo.

Voting is online at http://www.londonlifestyleawards.com/vote.php