![\"Image](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/towpath-5.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\nThe two women met almost 20 years ago at the Auberge de Chassignolles in Auvergne, an old inn run by renowned British chef Harry Lester. \u2018Laura had just finished cooking school and she\u2019d done a season cooking there,\u2019 says Lori. \u2018I was a food writer at the time doing a story for the Independent.\u2019 Lori had recently acquired four kiosks along the Regents canal and dreamed of turning them into some sort of caf\u00e9. She fell in love with Laura\u2019s cooking and asked what her plans were when she got back to London. Might she be interested in this \u2018little adventure\u2019 she was about to embark on? \u2018At that point [the towpath] wasn\u2019t even paved,\u2019 recalls Lori. \u2018It was literally the Wild West.\u2019<\/p>\n
They decided to give it a go for three months \u2018to see what we had\u2019. There was no kitchen, but they made porridge and granola, a daily stew or soup, and the same brownies and olive oil cake that are on the counter today. Soon, they knew they were onto something. \u2018Laura was like: [there’s] nowhere else I\u2019d rather be.\u2019<\/p>\n
Over time, they installed a proper kitchen and the menu evolved to fill it, though the ethos remained the same. This was to be a place which revolved around real connection, a slower pace than the world of London hospitality tended to dictate, and a considered approach to ingredients. Today, the food is seasonal and made for you to take your time over at one of Lori and Laura\u2019s few tables. There is a no takeaways rule and they don\u2019t allow laptops, reasoning that if you have made it down here to this beautiful, scruffy little stretch the canal you should sit a while, talk to the person at the table next to you, order Turkish eggs and toast and then an unnecessary-but-nice chocolate chip walnut cookie.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Laura Jackson, co-founder of Towpath on a rainy day at the caf\u00e9<\/p>\n
Scott MacSween<\/p>\n
\u2018We just invite people to stay and sit,\u2019 says Lori, who is originally from California. \u2018It means there is a different feeling of community that I think feels nice for people.\u2019 Community is central to what they have always tried to do here. It\u2019s why they don\u2019t just look after the caf\u00e9 but cultivate the scrubby bit of land on the other side of the bridge too. It\u2019s about \u2018making your patch of the neighbourhood a little friendlier\u2019, says Lori. Many of their customers have pitched in with the garden. A pair of local landscape gardeners often bring them the rejects from their fancy Notting Hill clients; one of their regulars brought them rose bushes. \u2018It\u2019s a bit of an orphan garden, and there\u2019s a sweetness to that,\u2019 says Lori.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The two women met almost 20 years ago at the Auberge de Chassignolles in Auvergne, an old inn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7757],"tags":[236185,748,58720,393,4884,257,121732,16,15],"class_list":["post-820446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-breakfast-brunch","tag-britain","tag-eating-drinking","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-london","tag-london-restaurants","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116215433717092871","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}