Posted by TheShot on 21 Aug 2007 | Tagged as: Local Brew
This combination pizza parlor (they serve square pizzas) and wine bar has numerous small café tables indoors and counter seating at the bar/pizza ovens. There’s also limited sidewalk seating out front. The décor is their namesake Roman film studios of Fellini’s 1950s, complete with movie posters (plus an AS Roma kit on the wall by [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 02 Aug 2007 | Tagged as: Barista
The votes have been tallied and a huge round of congratulations are in order. Props to James Hoffman, of La Spaziale UK Ltd. and jimseven fame (jimseven.com has linked over here often), for winning the 2007 World Barista Championship (WBC) today in Tokyo: Briton is crowned world espresso ‘barista’ champion at Tokyo contest (International Herald [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 16 Jul 2007 | Tagged as: Beans, Local Brew
Located in the original Bank of America (née Bank of Italy) building on the corner of Broadway and Columbus, this café/bar/restaurant opened just last month as a nicer alternative. It is a refreshing change from many of the North Beach Italian cafés and restaurants: they use particularly high quality ingredients for the neighborhood, and thus [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 17 Jun 2007 | Tagged as: Local Brew
This is yet another one of those coffeeshops/crêperies with the colored-chalk menu. They have nicer wood benches and tables inside its large, square space. It has an overall Latin feel — from the photos of Peru on the walls, to the employees, to using Martha & Bros. coffee from across the street. Which is unfortunate, [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 13 Nov 2006 | Tagged as: Foreign Brew
Back in July we reported on Illy’s strategy for opening licensed Illy Espressamente cafés across Europe. During my travels in Portugal last month, I had the pleasure of encountering my first one in the unlikeliest of places.
In the perimeter wall of the recently remodelled Praça de Touros do Campo Pequeno bullfighting arena, this fully owned [...]
Posted by TheShot on 03 Nov 2006 | Tagged as: Beans, Café Society, Foreign Brew, Machine, Quality Issues, Restaurant Coffee, Starbucks
Despite Portugal’s prominent historical role in the development of the coffee trade (for example, they introduced coffee production to Brazil), and the degree with which coffee is “interwoven throughout Portugal’s social, literary and economic history”, I’ve found surprisingly little written about the espresso in this small-but-influential coffee nation. Last month I took advantage of some [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 01 Sep 2006 | Tagged as: Local Brew
The Pearlina tea shop shut down and was replaced by this French bakery/café. At its heart is a great artisan baker who makes extraordinary pastries and breads (and is a true artisan: no cookie cutter stuff here). This is the baker’s only retail outlet, as the French team behind it have supplied some 40 local [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 27 Jun 2006 | Tagged as: Local Brew
Yes, this one is one of the classics. It’s a bright North Beach café that’s been open since 1988. They have many small indoor café tables with a lot of that “Cinzano”-like print art, clean surfaces, and East-facing glass windows. They also have an adjoining room that’s available for a lot of overflow on [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 23 Jun 2006 | Tagged as: Local Brew
When you get out to the fringes of SF, you often places that don’t seem like part of the city. This odd mix of an Irish pub and Outer Sunset beach café across the street from public Ocean Beach bathrooms, at the Muni N Judah turnabout, is a good example.
Popular with the beach and surf [...]
Posted by TheShot on 09 Jun 2006 | Tagged as: Local Brew
This youthful North Beach hangout is often filled with patrons who speak Italian, and they often show the “calcio” (soccer) games from Italian RAI International TV. Several customers will be reading Italian newspapers at any given time, and Italian pop music often plays in the background.
However, this locale strikes me as the kind of [...]