Looks are everything at Abuelo. The busy Southampton Street coffee shop is a fan favourite with Covent Garden shoppers, tourists, and office workers, who all desperately hang around come 12pm to snag a seat at the table. Table, singular. This is less of a cafe and more of a living room, with one long communal table dotted with vases, a stack of logs at one end, and a big landscape print. It’s beautiful but the food, while good, doesn’t quite live up to the pretty aesthetics. Not that it matters too much to those snapping photos of the figs and honey whipped mascarpone on sourdough or impressing clients here. While we won’t be rushing back for the Antipodean-leaning plates—avocado, poached egg, dukkah—we do recommend it for a coffee catch-up worthy of a magazine spread.