Seb S
Google
Lovely café, great coffee but £9 for tomato toast still feels off
South London Louie is a beautiful spot. Great coffee (Redemption Roasters), friendly team, and a relaxed setting inside the gallery.
I ordered the tomato toast: one slice of sourdough, a few tomato slices, a thin layer of tapenade, and a garnish. No sides, no extras. It looked good but felt very minimal.
This wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction. I gave it some thought and posted a review that questioned the value. The café responded with a detailed breakdown of their costs and asked me to update it which I’m doing here.
To their credit, they use good ingredients, bake their own sourdough, pay the London Living Wage, and after VAT and overheads, make around £1.95 profit on the dish. My own estimate was about £2 in total cost, so we weren’t far off.
The ingredients were very good, and the dish tasted great. But it’s still hard to see past paying £9 for a single slice of toast with tomatoes. The portion is modest, and the value just doesn’t quite land.
I’d happily return for the coffee and the atmosphere. But I’ll be more selective next time about what I order.