Top U.S. coffee ‘bars’ include La Colombe, Ritual Coffee Roasters - Slashfood
Posted by TheShot on 14 Feb 2006 | Tagged as: Foreign Brew, Local Brew, Quality Issues, Restaurant Coffee
Over this past weekend, Sarah Gilbert posted in the blog Slashfood that Food & Wine Magazine named Ritual Roasters among America’s top coffee bars: Top U.S. coffee ‘bars’ include La Colombe, Ritual Coffee Roasters - Slashfood. Also honored was Philadelphia’s La Colombe Torrefaction and Manhattan’s Ninth Street Espresso.
It’s great to see more people in the culinary arts appreciating some of this country’s finest purveyors of the coffee arts. But there’s a long way to go. Restaurants still typically serve significantly inferior espresso to coffee houses and cafés almost universally.
And also in Food & Wine Magazine recently, Laura Cunningham, general manager of Napa Valley’s French Laundry and partner of Super Chef Thomas Keller, espoused the virtues of Equator Estate coffee — her favorite, and what they serve at the French Laundry: French Laundry’s Lessons. A very good choice, but not one that reflects a savvy for coffee that’s near the level they exhibit for food.
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on 14 Dec 2006 at 8:33 pm -05:00T 1.Espresso News and Reviews - TheShot.coffeeratings.com » Trip Report: The French Laundry said …
[...] The wait staff are serious, professional, and rather stiff. The challenge of getting them to crack a smile was often like that of the Queen’s Guard at Buckingham Palace. But some opened up more than others — which was instrumental to learning more about how they made their espresso. Super Chef Thomas Keller (whom one relaxed staffer jokingly called “TK” with a sort of faux familiarity) has publicly sworn by Equator Estate Coffees. But their decision to use a superautomatic Schaerer machine is what caught me by surprise. [...]