Matcha Cafe Near Me at Angel: Katsute 100's Antique Tea Room

Katsute 100 opens at 10:00 on weekends and 11:00 on weekdays at 100 Islington High Street, London N1 8EG, at the Angel end of Camden Passage, and the best seat in the house is the one you get before lunch. Since December 2016 this Japanese tea room has poured matcha, hojicha and gyokuro inside a Georgian building furnished like a collector's front room. If you type matcha cafe near me anywhere around Angel, this is the address that locals send you to first.

Angel station on the Northern line is only a few minutes away on foot along Islington High Street, and the tea room sits where the high street meets the antiques alley of Camden Passage. Look for the narrow period frontage rather than a big sign. The tea room's own page gives the address as Islington High Street, though early press placed it on Camden Passage, so both names lead to the same door. Buses along Upper Street stop close by, and the Angel crossroads is a natural meeting point if you are joining friends.

Katsute roughly translates as in times gone by, and the house describes itself as a place for casual ceremony that is more than a cafe. That framing matters. You come here to sit with a pot of loose leaf tea or a whisked bowl of matcha, not to grab a cup and run. The room is furnished with antique Japanese cabinets, early twentieth century pieces and midnight blue floral wallpaper, and the ceramics you drink from are the same handmade pieces displayed for sale on the shelves around you.

The best way to understand the menu is to look at what the tea room sells to take home, because the same leaves end up in your cup. Its retail list includes Ceremonial Matcha Karin at £38 for 30g, the more rarefied Ceremonial Matcha Seian at £64 for 20g, and Matcha Keiki at £32 for a 40g tin. Uji Premium Gyokuro costs £25.85 for 50g, plain Hojicha £16.90 and the house Caramel Hojicha £20.50. If you are deciding between two drinks at the counter, ask which matcha grade goes into each, and taste the difference.

Regulars and reviewers return again and again to the hojicha latte, the roasted tea that smells faintly of toasted nuts and suits a grey London afternoon better than anything iced. A hojicha flat white also appears in visitor write-ups. For a slower ritual, order a pot of gyokuro, the shade grown green tea from Uji, and take the small cups seriously: gyokuro is brewed cooler than other green teas, and it rewards patience with a sweet, almost brothy depth.

The homemade cakes are the other half of the visit. Reviewers single out the matcha crepe cake, the Mont Blanc tart, the black sesame souffle cheesecake and a strawberry shortcake built on light fresh cream. Those same cakes can be ordered whole from the Angel branch: a whole Matcha Crepe Cake costs £75, the Strawberry Shortcake and Mont Blanc Tart are £77 each, and the Matcha Basque Cheesecake and Black Sesame Cake are £73. A chocolate message plate adds £7.50, since the fresh cream does not hold piped writing.

Our honest advice is to skip ordering a second cake for the table and spend that money on a better tea instead. The cakes are delicate and fairly sweet with cream, and one slice per person beside a pot of gyokuro or a bowl of matcha is the balance the room is built for. If you are celebrating, the whole cake order makes more sense than three slices, and it gives you something to carry home past the antique shops.

Weekday hours run from 11:00 to 20:00, while Saturday and Sunday open an hour earlier at 10:00 and close at 20:00. The Infatuation's advice is to come midweek if you want to be sure of a seat, and weekend mornings fill quickly with brunch walkers drifting over from Upper Street. A table at 11:00 on a Tuesday is about as calm as Islington gets. Staff are known for letting you linger rather than hurrying you out, which also means turnover on a busy Saturday is slow.

If every table is taken, you have options within the same company. The Brick Lane branch at 147 Brick Lane, London E1 6SB opens every day from 11:00 to 20:00, and the Covent Garden counter sits on the second floor of Uniqlo at 19 to 20 Long Acre, WC2E 9LZ. Neither copies the Angel room's antiques, but both pour the same teas. In Islington itself, a wait of more than twenty minutes is your cue to browse the passage and come back.

Press descriptions of the interior mention mismatched wood, wonky handmade ceramics and a period building that still shows its age in the best way. There is a leafy courtyard at the back, which is the seat to ask for on a mild afternoon. You will often see a solo reader at a window table with a pot of sencha, a pair of friends sharing one crepe cake, and someone examining a tea bowl on the shelf with real intent. Nobody is in a hurry, and that is the point of the place.

The managing director behind Katsute 100 is Joe Mossman, who had already opened the Tenshi izakaya on Upper Street in 2009 before turning to tea. The Angel room opened in December 2016, and a second Katsute 100 followed on Brick Lane in September 2021. The company now lists branches in Broadway Market and inside Uniqlo in Covent Garden and Edinburgh, but the Islington original is the one with the antique collection and the strongest sense of the in times gone by name.

Katsute 100 runs workshops across its branches. Its booking page lists a 55 minute tatami room experience for £10, a kintsugi workshop for £60, and this October a one hour Halloween kabocha pumpkin matcha latte workshop with the FUJIFILM House of Photography for £15. The tea room also stocks sake and Japanese whisky, and the shelves carry tea bowls, whisks and pots, so you can leave with a kit to recreate the ritual at home.

Pair your tea with the street outside. The Camden Passage antiques market, on the alley that starts beside the tea room at 1 Camden Passage, N1 8EA, trades on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 8am to 5pm, so a Saturday morning browse followed by a 10:00 matcha is a classic Islington loop. Just a few doors along at 106 Islington High Street, Frederick's has been a family-run restaurant and bar since 1969, and Kipferl at 20 Camden Passage serves Austrian cakes and wine.

Whole cakes are ordered through the website for collection in the shop. Sake and whisky are on sale, so it works for an early evening drink as well as a morning pot of tea. The building is historic and compact, and accessibility details are not published, so plan around steps and tight spaces if you need step-free access.

Katsute 100 suits tea drinkers who want to taste the difference between grades of matcha, people who like a room with a sense of history, and anyone hunting a quiet seat near Angel to read or talk for an hour. It is less suited to anyone who wants a quick takeaway between meetings, and to groups arriving at noon on a Saturday. Come on a weekday morning, order the gyokuro or a hojicha latte with a slice of crepe cake, and stay as long as the room lets you.