Dinosaur Coffee, Silver Lake, Los Angeles
Dinosaur Coffee reminds me of what I enjoyed most about the cafes that prompted me to start this blog when I was living in Korea — the shop radiates idiosyncratic personality. Quirky creative touches, from art to plants to decorative dino merch, can be found all around the interior, which was designed by the same...
Juan Valdez Café Orígenes, Bogotá, Colombia
Juan Valdez, the smiling, mustachioed “cafetero” with his mule and sacks of coffee, is perhaps one of the most recognizable coffee brands worldwide. The character – portrayed by actual coffee farmers since the 1960s – is a proud icon of the 500,000+ Colombian small farm coffee producers who co-own the brand through the national federation...
Verve Coffee – Downtown Los Angeles
Verve is a well regarded roastery and cafe out of Santa Cruz, CA. In the past couple years they’ve expanded with a handful of shops in Los Angeles and even an outpost in Tokyo. Their first Los Angeles location debuted at the Ace Hotel in Downtown, and it’s a really striking space. Mirrors give the...
Bar Nine, Los Angeles
Bar Nine is a Culver City-based cafe and roaster that recently celebrated its second anniversary. Despite its relative youth, the company is making a name for itself by experimenting with long-established cafe norms. Bar Nine isn’t alone here: I’ve noticed a wider move among more progressive coffee bars, especially in California, to drop some “Third Wave”...
Amor Perfecto Cafe, Colombia
Founded in 1997, Amor Perfecto is one of Colombia’s pioneering specialty coffee roasters. From their base in Bogotá, their reach is beginning to expand outside of the country as well (their coffee is now available through Amazon – though I’d try to find a fresher source myself). I lucked out when I visited as the...
Menotti’s Coffee Stop – Venice, CA
Last time I was in Los Angeles, I kept getting recommendations to visit a little shop called Menotti’s right next to the Venice Beach boardwalk – and I’m glad I did. Coffee service is lead by Nicely Abel Alameda, one of LA’s more affable, well-known baristas who’s developed something of a following as he’s moved...
Cafe Devotion – Bogotá, Colombia
Cafe Devotion recently opened a beautiful new cafe & roastery in Brooklyn (called Cafe Devocion in the US), so when I learned that they’re based out of Bogotá, I had to visit when I was in Colombia. Serendipitously, just a few blocks from the hotel I was staying at, Devotion has a cafe at...
Blacktop Coffee, Los Angeles
There’s a relatively fresh addition to Los Angeles’ rapidly blooming downtown coffee repertoire, located on a block that aptly showcases the new downtown LA. The new shop is called Blacktop Coffee, but its owner’s name isn’t new to anyone following specialty coffee – Tyler J. Wells was one of the founders of Handsome Coffee (now...
Review: Coutume Cafe, Paris
While I’m out visiting Los Angeles, we have a series of guest dispatches from Paris! Please enjoy the first of three posts & photos by Alden Gewirtz below. In the past few years, as the coffee revolution in the States and Australia started brewing in the post-Starbucks era, it became cliché for Americans to...
Budin Coffee – Greenpoint goes Nordic
Last weekend I made the trek to Greenpoint to check out Budin, a new Nordic-themed cafe bringing several of Sweden and Norway’s finest roasters’ wares to these shores. There are two menus here – one labeled “Specialty Coffee” that has the likes of Tim Wendelboe, Koppi Coffee, and Drop Coffee. You pay Scandinavian prices for these imported roasts,...
Toby’s Estate’s new Flat Iron cafe, with Strand Books at Club Monaco
Toby’s Estate has opened its first location in Manhattan in an interesting partnership, together with beloved indie book store, Strand Books, all inside a giant Club Monaco clothing store off 5th avenue that’s lit up brighter than an Apple store. I checked out the cafe on their second day after opening, and was lucky enough...
Intelligentsia Logan Square
Chicago’s Logan Square is now home to one of Intelligentsia’s newest cafes. A low bar with stools sits in the middle of the shop, with sparse white, angular booths at the windows. The back wall is covered with a birds-eye drawing of the neighborhood. The shelves are stocked with magazines. The diner style counter seating...
