Out yesterday via Serious Eats, the one and only Liz Clayton writes compellingly on “Why Restaurant Coffee Is Getting Better“:
The restaurant coffee problem is an evergreen topic among coffee professionals, those who watch the industry, and anyone who ever goes out to eat anywhere at all. Food providers, from punks who do the highest-end artisanal donuts out of a tricked-out van to the white-tablecloth-and-napkin set, may be genius-like in preparing comestibles…and will then smack you in the throat with the worst tasting coffee imaginable. Stale urns of scorchy, low-quality coffee, or perhaps a thin and bitter espresso prepared by the bus-boy. Why, for the love of all things warm and brown, why?
Aiming to change that are several restaurants of the new guard and some of the traditional guard as well.
She goes on to list Maialino (Counter Culture), Eleven Madison Park (Intelligentsia), Gramercy Tavern (Blue Bottle), Union Square Cafe (Dallis Bros. Coffee), and Atera (Barismo), all fine restaurants located in New York, along with Chicago’s Publican and Lula (both Intelligentsia), and Empire State South in Atlanta (Counter Culture). Atera in particular receives considerable attention in the feature for their relationship with Barismo, with whom they’re carving out a serious devotion for some Colombian Geisha. Read the whole thing here on Serious Eats.
