ABODE debuts in London to celebrate Antipodean coffee and hospitality

London is getting a new industry gathering that treats Antipodean café culture as more than a style cue. ABODE, launched by World Coffee Portal and Allegra Group, is set for Thursday, 4 June 2026 and will bring together around 100 leaders and senior stakeholders from the Australian, New Zealand and wider Southern Hemisphere hospitality scene in the UK.

The pitch is sharply focused. Rather than padding out a generic trade-show calendar, ABODE is being positioned as a curated meeting point for operators, founders, chefs, coffee specialists, suppliers, drinks brands and industry partners who have helped shape the way London now thinks about service, design, brunch and espresso standards. The afternoon summit will take place at Home House Private Members Club in Portman Square, Marylebone, a setting that suits the event’s business-first, relationship-driven tone.

The speaker list shows exactly where ABODE wants to sit in the market. Confirmed names include entrepreneur Richard Farleigh, WatchHouse founder Roland Horne, Allpress managing director Agnes Potter, Lantana Cafe founder Shelagh Ryan, Minor Figures founder Stuart Forsyth, Coutume chief executive Tom Clark, chef Sian Almond, pastry chef Philip Khoury and Elsewhere Coffee head of coffee Siala Farani-Tomlin. That mix points to the real story here: Antipodean hospitality is no longer being treated as a loose influence on London’s café scene, but as a formal export model built around brand-building, leadership, customer experience and the kind of service culture that keeps people coming back.

The timing matters because the UK branded coffee shop market is still expanding. World Coffee Portal says the sector reached 12,313 outlets and £6.8bn in value over the last 12 months, its fifth consecutive year of outlet growth. In that kind of market, the operators most likely to benefit are the ones who can differentiate on atmosphere, menu innovation and consistency, the same traits that made Australian and New Zealand cafés such a powerful reference point in London over the past two decades. World Coffee Portal has previously described London as one of the world’s most prestigious destinations for specialty coffee and café culture, and ABODE is trying to bottle that reputation into a tighter business forum.

There is also a wider social angle. ABODE will support Project Waterfall, which says 696 million people worldwide still lack access to clean water and that its work focuses on clean water, sanitation and education in coffee-growing communities. That gives the event a second layer of relevance for brands that want their hospitality story to extend beyond the room. In a city where Antipodean operators have already influenced everything from brunch menus to espresso bars, ABODE looks set to turn that culture into something more organised, more commercial and, for the right businesses, far harder to ignore.