GAIL's Bakery Soho

You're standing on Wardour Street in the thick of Soho, watching people clutch paper bags of still-warm croissants like they've won the lottery. GAIL's does that thing where everything looks deceptively simple—a display case of laminated pastries, a few loaves propped against the window—but somehow nails every single thing. The sourdough has proper tang, the croissants are the kind that shatter when you bite them, and the coffee's genuinely good without being fussy about it. It's the sort of place locals actually pop into between errands rather than planning a trip around, though plenty of people do exactly that anyway.