Leila’s Shop

In London we found, thanks to Bethany, a perfect embassy for Semi-Industrial Portuguese Confectionery.
It’s called Leila’s Shop, it’s a café/deli with 3 tables, a counter and a kitchen all in the same room, where breakfast arrives to the table in the pan, UCAL milk is dunk with a straw and where on Sundays (and only on Sundays) there’s natas and bolos de arroz (rice cakes). Leila is the owner and she chooses carefully what she sells in her shop: local vegetables, Polish horseradish and French chocolate. And naturally, some Portuguese pearls like água das pedras (the best carbonated water in the world) and our two most famous cakes.

On the morning of the last Sunday of October it was also selling Martino Gamper’s 100 chair books. He even popped in for a coffee (he’s talking on the phone in the last photo “after the jump”), and after having a chat with him we bought the book.

Leila knows books and cakes are a perfect match.
It’s on Calvert Avenue, close to Arnold Circus, in Shoreditch.

Leila’s sister, Alix (who explained us the family’s connections to Portugal), wrote a post on her blog about the shop after our visit.