Chalounge

True to Shoreditch type I have been to Chalounge. With my Mac Powerbook. It was only the once so I won’t feel I need to go a long way to absolve myself but I have been to Chalounge with my laptop all the same.
I think it was when I was at uni and my notoriously noisy Shoreditch flat was proving particularly noisy. Chalounge’s only real strength is its Wi-​Fi. And the plentiful seating that just screams ‘come and sit with one cup of tea for an entire day and take advantage of our Wi-​Fi’.
Other than that, there’s nothing particularly great about Chalounge. The décor (if you can call it that) is a bit grotty. It’s a massive café but owing to the poor, drab decoration there’s no sense of space or light. Take advantage of the Wi-​Fi but take your own tea. I don’t know how you can get peppermint tea wrong but somehow Chalounge’s staff can.

Oh for gods sake Shoreditch. I mean really? take a good hard look at yourself peering over your black rimmed geek glasses at the Mac you got for free for being slightly dyslexic yet ever so creative. What are you doing in Chalounge playing solitaire anyway? get a real job and some contact lenses while you’re at it.
This place is the epitome of everything I am terrified of becoming, with their ‘derelicte’ décor and plastic food (it is so bad I am sure it’s not real) it makes me want to move to Croydon where people don’t try to be cool because they know it will never, ever happen.
I do have a Mac and as such would probably be allowed in to Chalounge but if I wanted to sit in a music-​less doom hole with the great unwashed and unemployed I would go to Wetherspoons and have a pint of gin for 50p.

I walk by this café often and it just makes me laugh because all I see inside is white mac laptops. Lots. Like it was a condition for entrance.
And that is exactly why I don’t like going here. I have no need for carrying my laptop with me and without it just feels like entering a unknown territory. Shhh need to be quiet. No music. Bad coffee.
Even though the cozy looking sofas are tempting I need some life around me!

The Chalounge is my favourite café in London. It carries the eclectic, vintage, shabby but cool vibe outside on the street of Brick Lane into the interior of the Chalounge.
There’s an array of sofas, stools and chairs that look as though they’ve been dragged in off the street and cleaned up alongside some traditional and fun, newly designed furniture. There are old pictures and paintings hanging everywhere in beautiful guilded style frames and brilliant shabby chic lamps. The design of this place is amazing. It’s a dimly lit place in areas but the lamps give off beautiful colours. This creates a warm, homely atmosphere and with their free wi-​fi you’ll be sharing the café with lots of people and their laptops. I love to go herfe to read a magazine or to have a catch up coffee with family and friends. There’s a genuine comfy, community feel to the place and I could sit and enjoy coffee in here for hours. This place is fantastic.

I live literally opposite Chalounge on Brick Lane. And I can say, in my expert opinion, that it is not great. I must preface this by saying that it does, however, have wi-​fi, so it’s really not all bad. And I spent the entire Summer ‘borrowing’ that internet for my laptop. The place itself, yes, has cool décor — funky, shabby chairs, etc. but that really is it’s only saving grace. They never play music, which results in a sterile, creepy vibe, and you feel weird if your voice rises over a hushed whisper.
The coffee is not great, the staff seem very uninterested, usually sitting on a stool behind the counter listening to their iPod, and the very small array of cakes is woeful. My friend had a brownie here not long ago, and it was rock solid. We decided it must’ve been sitting there since the late 70s. If you need wi-​fi, head to Coffee@ up the street, which serves the best coffee in London.