Serving Assembly: Qubic Cafe
by Ben Sibley
Qubic Cafe, bringing coffee mixology to central London. Serving Assembly Blend.
Beginnings
Tucked in between Trafalgar Square and Covent Garden, Qubic is a UK first. Inspired by the rapidly-growing coffee mixology scene emerging out of Shanghai, owner Sophie Wu is curating coffee-infused seasonal serves that wouldn't look out of place in London's top cocktail bars.
Sophie's childhood spent in China's picturesque east-coast city of Suzhou was followed by four years of university study in Montreal and frequent, treasured visits to the city's best breakfast and brunch outlets.
In 2021, chemistry degree in hand, interest in hospitality piqued and with a vision to open her own cafe, she headed to the UK with eyes on London's leading coffee shops. Collecting the best of what she saw as she hopped from one to the next, she challenged herself to create a blueprint for a uniquely elevated coffee experience.
As coffee mixology bars took China by storm, Sophie returned home in 2023 to spend a month immersing herself in the trend. After studying the fundamentals of recipe creation and tasting the best serves Shanghai had to offer, she came back to London with a stack of notepads packed full of ideas.
Qubic Cafe
Qubic opened in January 2024 with a menu of 9 coffee-infused signature serves. In Sophie's own words - 'Way, way too many. And some of them took far too long to create, so we'd have a queue out the door and down the street.' As is expected by many first-time operators making their way into hospitality, opening week was quite the baptism of fire.
One drink in particular - thankfully, quick to make - drew the crowds... And it's easy to see why.
The Vienna Coffee. Freeze-distilled milk - ice-cold, velvety and super sweet, is topped with a double shot of Assembly Blend. It's finished with an over-sized serving of whipped cream and a generous dusting of single origin chocolate powder.
While the offering has been evolved and refined, The Vienna Coffee has stuck to the top of the menu. And Qubic's customers have continued to indulge, including a local four-legged resident by the name of Sir Clive of Covent Garden - a bulldog with 47,000 Instagram followers no less.
The future
Qubic's start has been strong and Sophie's notepads remain bursting with recipes and recommendations. There's talk of finely-tuned equipment for creation phase (a centrifuge is on the list) and clarified milk - dairy milk made totally translucent with a filtration process similar to pour over coffee brewing - could well be added to the menu before too long.
As the six month milestone nears, Qubic has proven that London's firecely competitive coffee scene has room for carefully considered, regularly refined, innovative offerings. It's this commitment to detail that's shared by the very best of our wholesale partners and we're excited to see what the future brings for Sophie.
Visit
Qubic offers an extensive menu of classic coffee beverages alongside their signature drinks. They serve Assembly Blend and stock a wide selection of our latest filter coffees to take home.
Open Monday 9am-5pm, Tuesday-Friday 7.30am-5pm, Saturday-Sunday 9am-7pm.