WHEN A WASPISH gossip column quotes you saying you’re “London’s sole hipster property agent”, you better be on trend. After all, City Spy appears in the mass-circulation Evening Standard, so potentially thousands of people will read your boast.

CF Commercial (“Perfectly suited to the Shoreditch feel,” says its website) certainly has a spiffing address, the Alphabeta building at 14 Finsbury Square, Shoreditch EC2A 1BR. But does a location only a few turns of a fixie pedal from Silicon Roundabout and the Queen of Hoxton automatically confer coolness?

Probably not. When my editor asked the self-styled hipster agency to chat about how the team achieved über-cool status, he sensed some panic at CF C.

A request to take a photograph of the scenesters seemed to add to the agents’ unease, but after an unusually long string of emails, and with the help of a publicist, a pic, above left, arrived of CF C founder Craig Fisher with this comment from the flack: “…attached a headshot of Craig. He doesn’t have a Shoreditch quiff, unfortunately, but uses the same polish to shine his head and boots, and the beard has more wax than a beehive.

“Sadly, he has to wear a suit for meeting his more corporate clients.”

Hmmm. What did Mr Too Cool For Cats have to say? Quoth the founder and managing director of CF C:

“Getting sick of ordering my flat white at the same Costa or Pret à Manger, I launched CF Commercial in 2008 to give Londoners what they really want: coffee in something other than a cup, and food on something other than a plate.

“Radicalised in the pop-ups of Shoreditch, I shaved my head, grew a beard and got on my bike to find the best bars and eateries.

“The Cereal Café might not be a client (yet), but we’ve worked with the likes of Jaguar Shoes, Tina, We Salute You and the Modern Pantry.” 

Well, I suppose that’s a first: a hipster admitting to using Costa and Pret.

Hamish Scott 19056

* Backstory: Starbucks slips out of Hackney; The hot side

* Main pic, top: even London’s finest have a certain je ne sais quoi when they hang around locations as in the news as Norton Folgate. Apart from supplied portrait, pictures on this page are © DavidAltheer [at] gmail.com and are for sale for reproduction. Most photographs can be visually enlarged by pressing on them.

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