Lodestar Coffee

A bar that changes its roasters

Lodestar pours a rotating multi-roaster programme, so the useful question at the counter is what is on today. The selection is curated tightly from niche roasteries around the world, and the interest lies in the choice being made that week rather than in a fixed house espresso.

Regular cupping events give the bar a tasting-led role beyond service, comparing coffees side by side on aroma, flavour and structure.

Lower Clapton, and a night version

The bar sits in Lower Clapton, in Hackney, and the room is as much a part of it as the coffee: small, design-led and calm. It also has a second mode. Lodestar occasionally runs as a night café, with sessions going late into the evening and laptops banned, which turns the space into a social room rather than a workplace.

Between the cuppings and the night sessions, it operates as a place where people are expected to talk about what they are drinking.

Ask what is current

Because the programme rotates, there is no fixed bean, origin or recipe to look for; the day's selection is the experience. Ask which coffees are open, what is on filter, and what the bar is most pleased with at the moment, then follow the answer.

Lodestar was named in European Coffee Trip's 2025 awards, the one fixed marker on a bar whose identity is otherwise deliberately in motion.