It's that time again: time for my annual round-up of my coffee, food and cocktail favourites of the year. I've used the same categories as last year — coffee, brunch, street food, restaurant and cocktail. And as usual, I've included new-to-me picks from both London and my travels around the world. This year, I visited seven different countries (France, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Peru, Poland and the United States) and enjoyed some fantastic meals and cups of coffee.

After a 19-year absence, 2018 was the year I finally returned to Amsterdam. As accommodation in the city is expensive, even when booking well in advance, I opted to take a morning flight from London City Airport that got me into central Amsterdam soon after 10 am on Saturday, flying back to London late on Sunday night. I saw quite a bit of the city in two full days, including six of its speciality coffee shops. Here's what else I got up to in my weekend in the Dutch capital.

Amsterdam is a city so convenient to get to from London that it's rather embarrassing that my only previous visit was at the end of the last century. 2018 was the year I finally managed to right that wrong and top of my list of things to do was visiting some of the excellent specialty coffee shops and roasteries that the city now boasts.