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Cafe capital
According to a report by the Local Data Company (‘Full of Beans! A review of Coffee Shops 2009’, www.localdatacompany.com), the number of independent coffee shops in the 705 UK town centres it surveyed has grown to 9,441 – up 47 per cent in the last 12 months. Top of the list: Edinburgh with 182 cafes. Says Local Data Company director Matthew Hopkinson: ‘The rate of growth of coffee shops in the last 12 months has been the most significant of any sector that we track. Caffeine has been the most significant stimulus to the UK High Street in this recession.’
WELL, DID SHE OR DIDN'T SHE?
‘New cafe at building where JK Rowling penned Harry Potter book,’ announced The Scotsman in October. The item referred to the opening of the Spoon Cafe Bistro (6A Nicolson St., T 0131 557 4567, www.spooncafe.co.uk), for years the site of a Chinese buffet and, before that, of Nicolson’s Cafe.
It is there that Britain’s most successful author is said to have penned the first in the blockbuster Harry Potter series while a single mother on benefits. Immediately sniffing a story, we at Instant wondered, ‘Well, was it?’ So we put on our trilbies and trenchcoats and set out to investigate. Actually, we just called Jo’s (to her friends) publicist and asked him to ask her. He replied: ‘I can’t clarify further other than to say that Nicolson’s was one of the cafes that Jo wrote in.’ So now you know.
Cocktail Bars
Jason Scott and Mike Aikman of Bramble Bar (16 Queen St., T 0131 226 6343, www.bramblebar.co.uk) are now up and running with another cool cocktail bar, The Saint (44 St. Stephen St., T 0131 225 9009, www.thesaintedinburgh.co.uk). Mike recently visited rum and cigar manufacturers in Cuba. (That’s a clue.)…Another new venture: The Westroom (3 Melville Pl., T 0131 629 9868, www.thewestroom.co.uk) brought to you by Mark Fraser and Mike Spink of one of Edinburgh’s pioneering cocktail bars, Sygn (15 Charlotte Lane, T 0131 225 6060, www.sygn.co.uk), and the Old Town elegance of Monteiths (57-61 High St., T 0131 557 0330, www.monteithsbar.co.uk).