The Fields Beneath

The Fields Beneath opened in Kentish Town in 2012 and dropped every animal product from its menu in 2017. It puts its focus on three things: coffee, food and people.

The house espresso comes from Luzma Trujillo’s farm, Santa Elena in Tarrazú, Costa Rica, which she took over from her uncle more than twenty years ago. The café buys her green coffee fresh every year: it is picked between December and February and reaches the UK in summer. For a few years The Fields Beneath roasted it itself, first with friends at Tate and then at Union, and it now has the beans roasted by Butterworth & Son. A single-origin filter from a guest roaster is always on alongside it, and the espresso is made into flat whites with oat milk. Luzma visited the café in 2019 on a trip to Europe.

The kitchen covers breakfast, brunch and lunch: large croissants with their own fillings, bagels, wraps and a hot dish when the weather calls for one, mostly made from scratch with seasonal and British ingredients where possible. The café also caters breakfasts for Kentish Town businesses. The shop sells a small selection of natural wines from a handful of importers who work with growers using organic or biodynamic practices and few or no additives, with wine on tap for refills. Butterworth & Son roasts the coffee.