Lower Marsh is one of those fascinating London streets forever hovering on the edge of gentrification. This normally leads to vintage clothing shops and decent cafes, and here's a great example - the Chunnel Bar.
A very simple, plain, white place. Many great cafes were minimal before minimal was a thing you read about in interiors magazines. And a lovely cup of tea, all dark brown and comforting.
Clip art can be the kiss of death for a cafe. The quirky individualism of hand-lettering and stuff gets lost when a computer arrives. But not here, this single simple little clip seems very fitting for the atmosphere. And when did you last here the word 'Chunnel'? It's a splendid relic of another age, like the sound of a modem hand-shaking.
More minimal minimalism.
It's a big old place as well. Nice atmosphere. You get the impression that they know lots of their customers. This is still a community cafe. Excellent place. I must go back for a fry-up.
"Chunnel" really dates it. The name sounds really quaint, now. There was just a very short time (long before the tunnel opened) when "Chunnel" started to be used, but we never took to it in Britain, did we - I suppose it sounded just a bit too obviously "invented by the PR department". I think the name must still be marketed abroad, though, because a lot of blogs by US visitors use it (they are always toudchingly disappointed that they couldn't see anything out of the window - I think they expect to see fish !)
Posted by: Chris Jones | March 02, 2007 at 05:40 PM