Toro Coffee
The espresso on the hopper changes every week and the filter changes every day or two, and the pour-overs run through hand-thrown ceramic cones.
Why go
Ross and Gill opened this room in September 2018 on the stretch of Pollokshaws Road that runs past Shawlands station toward Pollok Country Park, and they came to it with a lineage: Ross's older brother Iain runs Primal Roast (Brian's Coffee Spot). It works as a true multi-roaster, with separate beans on espresso and filter, filter available both as batch brew off a Moccamaster and as pour-over. Glasgow's own The Good Coffee Cartel is the house regular, and guests have run from Has Bean to Gardelli in Italy. The room is a ground-floor tenement with a white frontage against the red sandstone, high ceilings, and enough floor left empty that the light reaches the back, where a set of chairs is built from halved wooden pallets (Foodie Explorers). Food is a short list, sourdough toast and cake, with the 2018 traybakes and cinnamon buns coming in from Freedom Bakery.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the tasting flight, which puts an espresso, a flat white and a batch brew in front of you at once, so you can taste what the current beans do in three preparations1. Ask what The Good Coffee Cartel has on. Take the sourdough toast with it.
- Avoid: planning an afternoon visit. The archived hours have the doors closing at 3.30pm on weekdays and 3pm at the weekend, and there is no evening service. Do not rely on the venue's website either, since its certificate no longer matches the domain and the page will not load.
What locals & experts say
- Brian's Coffee Spot (Brian Williams, December 2018), on a Kenyan Gondo AA the bar had on filter:
Not your typical Kenyan, it had a mellow, fruity flavour which I slowly realised was tomato.
He adds,while I'm not sure I'd want to drink it every day, just the fact that coffee can taste of tomatoes pretty much made my day.
1 - Brian's Coffee Spot, on the Colombian Caldas espresso:
well-rounded and just as well-balanced,
and in milka really sweet flat white with a biscuit-like taste.
1 - Brian's Coffee Spot Awards 2018, Happiest Staff, runner-up: an award from that coffee blog's own annual list, not an industry body.1
- Foodie Explorers (Mr C, November 2018), on the Americano off a Cartel Narcos blend:
very smooth, not at all bitter like some blends can be, nice aroma.
2 - Local rec: Jeff's save. He left no note on it.
Good to know
- Timing: early opening, roughly 7.30am on weekdays, 9am Saturday and 10am Sunday, with everything shut by mid afternoon. Those hours come from the venue's own site as archived in April 2020 and have not been reconfirmed since.
- Booking: walk-in only.
- Practicalities: the shop took cards including Amex in 2018, wifi is free with a code from the counter, and there are no power sockets, so it is not a laptop shift venue.
- Getting there: Shawlands railway station is the nearest stop, and Pollok Country Park is a short walk west.
- Hygiene: the Food Hygiene Information Scheme rates the address a Pass, inspected 7 October 2019.4
- Currency warning: no critic or guide has covered this cafe since December 2018. Beans, roasters and the food list should be treated as the 2018 picture.
Verdict
could-visit — A serious little multi-roaster on the quiet stretch of Pollokshaws Road past Shawlands, run by Ross and Gill since September 2018. The program is the reason to go: espresso swapped weekly, filter swapped every day or two, batch brew on a Moccamaster and pour-over through hand-thrown ceramic cones, with Glasgow's Good Coffee Cartel as the house regular alongside guests from as far as Gardelli in Italy. The food is toast and cake rather than a kitchen. Nobody with a critic's byline has written it up, and the newest review is from 2018, so it earns a rung for craft and not for reputation.