Caffe Ritazza

I’d already purchased an inedible sandwich at lunchtime from a different coffe shop when I arrived here starving late afternoon. Handed over a cheese and tomato sandwich in white bread to a sullen member of staff who placed it in a grill. Unfortunately she only toasted one side, so the other was just plain white inedible bread. Too tired to argue, I just used their table to make a phone call, put the sandwich in my bag and took it home to toast it properly. It was fine. The place is clean and there was enough seating. Not much more to say really…

The Caffe Ritazza at Gare de Lyon in Paris is so much better than this one. This one is a bit run down and dingy, but it does offer a reasonable alternative to the starbucks and café nero offerings also in the station.

Nothing remarkable about this stop in the chain. Great if you want a decent coffee in a train station and if you have a Bite card you get 20% off!

Stopped off here while in London. Had a Cappuccino £2.09 served in a paper cup. Drank the coffee while sitting down. The coffee was very nice and warm and had lots of flavor.
The Café was clean, the tables were clean and the service was fast and efficient. There were enough seating for all the customers. The average wait to get served was only a few minutes.

Caffe Ritazza is a worldwide coffee brand. It has ‘360 outlets in 37 countries worldwide’. One of these outlets is in Victoria Station, London. The layout is similar to any shop in a station as busy as Victoria, quite narrow with lots of seats squished together. This, as you can understand, doesn’t make it the most comfortable place to drink a coffee and watch the world go by. I ordered a soya cappuccino (they do soya, which is a thumbs up). Cappuccino is supposed to be foam, right? Hmm. The coffee I purchased was more of a latte with luke warm milk and far too much of it. I couldn’t finish it and it didn’t give me the caffeine boost I needed. On the hand, I did have a really nice fruit and seed type flapjack that was delicious, so not all bad.
I think the location makes it difficult to keep up the standards with it being so busy, and that in another part of the world they may be much nicer.