All aboard The Ship of Adventures, me hearties!
Over 400 years ago, the first coffee beans arrived on these shores, ferried across the waves by merchant vessels. Now, you can sail the high seas of good coffee at the wonderfully quirky The Ship of Adventures in Dalston. Crewed by local educational charity The Hackney Pirates, this charming space has taken the nautical theme and run with it to glorious extremes.
The crowning glory of The Ship of Adventures is the cafe and gift shop, known as The Deck. Designed to look like the bowels of a vast pirate ship, The Deck is filled with nautical memorabilia, portholes, and a getaway boat, suspended from the ceiling. The effect is striking, to say the least.
Whilst you might be hoping to find grog and treasure chests here, you’ll instead find something much more valuable to the average Londoner: caffeine. The Ship of Adventures make a damn fine brew, which pairs very nicely with their range of cookies and sweet treats – a rather nice matcha and white choc chip cookie amongst them. Given your surroundings, it might not be a bad idea to come along with a laptop and start planning your next adventure abroad.
Other imaginative spaces around The Ship of Adventures include The Ideas Room, The Navigator’s Office, and The Deep, which is designed to look like an underwater cave. They’re all used to support The Hackney Pirates’ mission to develop literacy, learning, and other important skills in local young people – alternatively, you can hire them out for a cracking themed birthday party.
The Ship of Adventures also boasts a lovely little gift shop, which sells books and stationery, along with art and crafts from Hackney artists. Happily, all the profits from the cafe and shop are reinvested back into The Hackney Pirates’ work with the local youth. A coffee and a cookie here doesn’t just benefit you, it helps the community too – and there’s nothing quite as sweet as that!
Location: 138 Kingsland High Street, Dalston, E8 2NS. Nearest station is Dalston Kingsland. See it on Google Maps.
Opening times: 10am-4:30pm (Tue-Sat), closed Sundays and Mondays.
More information: from their website.
Featured image: @shipofadventures