A month or so back I was in the farthest darkest reaches of Hove, Actually (practically in Portslade, for the locals reading) having a repair done to my car. While I waited I wandered into a new café called “Intenso”. It’s an unlikely outpost of another Intenso in Ibiza—though not so unlikely with the weather we’ve been having here lately.

The coffee was excellent, the service was friendly, the staff were entertaining, and the music was just fine. They also have free wi-fi and comfy seating. I liked it so much that I used up the ends of a couple of rolls of film from a wedding I’d just shot to photograph the place—for free. In return, the owner later very kindly gave me coffee gratis for a year, so take that as my declaring my interest up front.

I’m now going to use my potent Google karma to recommend the place. It’s not exactly the most glam part of town, but you’ve got to admire the people who run Intenso for building a classy venue anyway. It’s a delightful place to sit with a newspaper or book or laptop PC and forget what a state your flat is in, and it’s probably a better place to things done online than one or two of Brighton & Hove’s libraries, where they don’t serve damn fine coffee. (I wouldn’t recommend that you try to write your history of the English-speaking peoples there at school run time when it’s solid with yummy mummies though.)

Why not visit it?