Bread and Honey | Independent Leicester Cafe

Independent coffee house nestled in the heart of Leicester

Bread & Honey as a concept came around after I was offered a retail unit on King st. Leicester. It was terribly run down but it was a Victorian building of great potential. We came to the name ‘Bread & Honey’ because of the shop’s location on King st, I wanted a name that had a ‘warm’ or ‘familiar’ resonance so the logical choice was to use a nursery rhyme that would allow us to pull from the mental imagery created within. ‘Sing a song of sixpence’ with the mention of a ‘King’ was the obvious choice and it threw up plenty of options, ‘Sixpence’ for one ‘4 and 20’ was another even ‘parlour’ we even had a very high profiled advertising agency in London (so that is what friends are for) look at the name and branding only to come up with my original preferred option, ‘Bread & Honey’.

— It's more than the coffee

We cook from fresh every day, the soups are cooked from scratch, the chickens are oven roasted, the ‘Mediterranean veg’ is seasoned and slow roasted every morning, our cakes are homemade the bread is from an award winning local craft baker who refuses to use preservatives because of its impact on the bread.

We use a butcher in one of the furthest corners of Leicestershire because they have strict policies on sourcing local products of the highest quality. We rely on our suppliers being passionate because we are so passionate on only serving the best.

— Monmouth

Beyond the boundaries of our county there are roasters of such expertise that it felt we were missing out. The search for the right bean that was consistent in flavour balance, quality & of a trusted supply channel had begun.

For months on end I trailed round coffee shops mostly in London experiencing different coffee shops and trying their beans, ‘Ozone’, ‘Square Mile’, ‘Caravan’, ‘Climpson & sons’, ‘Taylor st. baristas’ the list went on these are beans of stupendous quality but in the end I had to trust my palate and stick to a bean that was of a sublime quality and from a company that had been established for well over 30 years. Monmouth coffee it had to be.

A trip to the London coffee festival that year also landed me the supply of the best hot chocolate available, made of the best Belgian single-origin chocolate.