Counter Albion

My partner and I frequent this deli as it’s a great spot for good and wholesome foods and great coffee. The service is always friendly and the atmosphere very casual and uplifting. The lighting is great, even in the back area where you can find a variety of cookbooks for sale and mags to read. The WiFi is always nice and we like to sit awhile and focus on work as it’s not too loud. Great place for small meetings. I especially like their lunch buffet style offering delicious salads and soups… and you can’t help but dabble in their cakes and crumbles! SO good! Give it a go, you won’t be disappointed.

Counter Albion, Albion Shoreditch’s «healthy little sister», is located in the former Maison Trois Garçon café on Redchurch Street.
It is different to the main Albion, with lighter meals offered self-​service in a low-​key and chilled environment. It is a shop, dining spot and work space. When you enter the main door during the day, you are greeted by mac books galore before you, with creative types concentration mode, sipping makaibari 2^nd flush grand reserve tea.
Our visit was for lunch, so you have a long bar of salads, a couple of hot dishes and a selection of breads. These are available to take away or you can grab a tray and settle at a table. The rear dining room in Counter has a fantastic sky window letting in an abundance of light. This is hugely popular during the day, so get their early if you want this prime spot.
Back to the food which is simplistic in terms of ingredients and presentation. It is far from the pretentiousness you would expect in Shoreditch, but with more of a focus on raw, healthy and organic produce as an antithesis to Albion Café down the road. The lunch time concept is simple, a soup option, two hot mains and then a selection of salads. Dishes can include deviled heirloom tomatoes with pickled red onion, braised barley & spiced chickpeas or mixed beans, peas with butter leaf, fennel and pickled cucumber. It ticks your nutrients and vitamins box.
Counter is the perfect polar opposite to its big brother down the road with their hearty meaty pies, rich kedgeree and traditional Fish and Chips. Prices come in two sizes for Salads £5/​8, with soup at £4.75 and hot mains £8 (excluding side salad). Not a bad price for an alternative lunch option to Pret, Itsu, Pod etc. A welcome addition to the Redchurch Street which is quickly filling up with retail.

I love working on my laptop or just reading and chilling in this amazing Redchurch St café. Just like the whole of the street, it has a Brooklyn vibe. Try their hot counter cleanser, the best antidote to a Saturday morning hangover: it might be weird at first, but it’s really healthy and it’s the best excuse to stay there and chill. Their almond milk cappuccino is probably the best in London, foamy as if it used normal milk. The space itself is gorgeous and artsy and the staff are lovely.

Little to add, really, Colleen has said it all. While The MTG used to be a special eat-​in treat for me, I somehow don’t get the right vibe after the Albion makeover.
But the salad bar is amazing, and it’s just perfect for takeaway. No more blondies, but that’s probably a good thing!

YES. First to review. I’m pretty chuffed, ok?! This little diamond is going to be a favorite of mine, I can just tell.
Counter Albion replaces Maison Trois Garçon on Redchurch Street in Shoreditch/​Brick Lane. For those of you that loved MTG, you’ll be happy to know that the place had a very nice clean up but is still the open, welcoming, wifi-​enabled spot you came to know and love. This time, with an Albion tilt.
As a frequent dweller of The Albion a short distance away on Boundary Street — I was psyched when I saw that they’d be in charge of this space. I booked myself for a Friday lunch meeting to check it out.
It’s counter service, and there is ample seating. The back room is flooded with light from a beautiful opening in the ceiling, and adorned with a funky light fixture. Communal tables and alcoves abound, if you are looking to tuck away for a few hours with a coffee, some books, your laptop or a friend — you’ll find this most cozy.
The food offering is all counter service and there are choices ranging from hot (bone broth soups — oh my!), frittata, protein pots, and mixed salads. There is also a cold cooler with bircher muesli and the like. How about a bread station with individual pots of peanut butter, butter and almond butter? Be still my heart.
As it was day 3 — they were still getting their sea legs, and thus offering 50 percent off food and drink. A smart strategy as I do have a few recommendations based on my visit:
1. The inability to run a tab. I understand it is counter service, but as I stayed for 3 distinctly different activities (quick coffee pre-​meeting, lunch meeting, work post-​meeting) I would’ve preferred to have just paid for the whole thing at the end. Surely with a computer system by which to check out it couldn’t be that hard? It seems silly to charge £1.60 for my coffee on a card when it could just be lumped into the final bill. I mentioned this (without being a jerk!) and the girl agreed with me and said they’d tell the owners. Please do — this is a cumbersome rule.
2. The temps of the food seemed a bit off. The bone broth soup was tepid and the friatta cold. Cold eggs? No good. However, the cold salads were all great.
3. Counter service menu is confusing. There’s combos of things but I am not sure what goes with what and at what price. Both me and my lunch partner were confused — so it wasn’t just me and my addled-​brain, it was legit confusing. You get a menu but no table service. I’m supposed to add how many salads? I can have this one plate for this? What else? It just needs a bit more thought and organization I think.
4. Room for serving one’s self — the counter is great but it’s not really set up for serving yourself appropriately. I felt like I was balancing everything and it would all come crashing down!
Overall I think this spot is going to be very popular. A really nice lunch, a great space to work, a FOODPORN (!?) library in the back curated by a local bookshop. Good coffee. Nice things. It’s like a mini version of The Albion.
Just a few tweaks and it’ll be good as gold. I look forward to returning and being a regular patron!