Autumn leaves and winter draws on

Now that we've all stopped talking about heatwaves and how "close" it is, and we're instead predicting snow and calling the weather "fresh", coffee shops are leaning towards more comforting foods for the new season.

For some, that means soup that sits in a heated contraption all day before being dished out by the salty ladle-full, for the handsome price of a fiver, perhaps into a hollowed-out crusty roll.

For others, the answer to the colder weather is "toasties" that conjure up the image of a Breville out back - and warm up nothing other than our memories of childhood in the 1990s.

The most-widely-accepted winter offering is a "panini". The plural of "bread roll" in Italian has become the chains' name for a single toasted ciabatta. Perhaps it'll be filled with "salami" - another incorrect yet apparently acceptable misuse of an Italian locution.

Back in the day, traditional coffee shops didn't offer hot lunches, lest the aroma of melting foods destroyed the flavour of the coffee. All bar a few have since sold their souls in favour of a shop full of coach-trippers enjoying a Tuna Melt.

Some coffee shops make fresh sandwiches every day, full of natural ingredients designed to boost your immune system for winter, without the use of an industrial grill to taint the delicate aroma of their freshly-roasted beans.

This ensures that, as a coffee shop, our primary offering, our star attraction, our bread and butter, if you will, is "perfecto" in all weathers. "Perfecti" would just sound wrong there, and that's because it is.