There are lots of things the French are very good at – baguettes, wine, cheese, not getting fat off baguettes wine & cheese, love affairs, well behaved dogs and going on strike, to name a few – but it is clear to say that making coffee is not one of them.  If coffee is indeed a language in itself, as Jackie Chan eloquently put it, then it appears to have been seriously lost in translation.

And you can all but forget about ordering your coffee ‘to go’.  My latest attempt ended in me walking the streets of Paris with three miniature lidless plastic cups swerving about on the porcelain plate that the waiter had ‘lent’ me for the journey.

But little by little, smart cafés focused on quality coffee, with baristas who live and breathe their boulot, are starting to pop up around Paris.

Here are my top finds for my daily grind.

La Caféothèque

Follow your nose to find this gem – the smell of freshly roasted coffee beans oozing out the door fills the entire street.  The café is decked out, rather peculiarly, with three entirely mismatched salons – one dark room with overgrown walls of hanging plants that make you feel like you are having coffee in a Costa Rican rainforest, a second salon decked out with walls of colorful coffee jars, and the third, my favorite, a sun-filled, carpeted room with long couches and comfy upholstered vintage armchairs overlooking the Seine.

La Caféothèque is host to a range of diverse characters, who are as incongruous as the furniture, including the corduroy-clad local music composer who waves his non-existent conductor’s baton in the air while sipping on his V60 filter, and the young boho artist who idly sketches unwitting customers over an Ethiopian espresso.

It isn’t ‘sceney’, and you will be hard pressed to find anyone who has been snapped by the Sartorialist amongst the palm leaves, but it offers damn good brews from Colombia to Guatemala and beyond.

La Caféothèque
52 rue de l’Hôtel de Ville 75004
Métro: Pont Marie
Tel: +33 1 53 01 83 84

 

Télescope 

The cosy wood-clad interior of this café in the 1^st arondissement consists literally of a kitchen bench, a coffee machine and 4 two-person tables. You pull up a chair, tap your feet in time with the rad background music and smile into your cup of smooth and intensely aromatic coffee as the owner, charismatic Frenchman Nicolas, chats happily with his regulars over the counter. A fashion photographer for years, Nicolas decided one day (after a shoot involving coffee) to give it all up and travel the world learning the art of coffee making before opening Télescope in March.  And his efforts have paid off, the coffee is absolutely divine.

I was sandwiched between a quiet English couple and two young Australian girls for the duration of my filter and flat white, which took away slightly from the quaint French vibe, but then again a Parisian coffee shop devoid of brewed-up foreigners, would simply not bode well for the quality of the coffee.

Télescope
5 rue Villedo 75001
Métro: Pyramides
Tel: +33 1 42 61 33 14

Coutume Café 

In the world of coffee (and food), there is something very attractive about lining up; there is a line, ergo the coffee is good.  I lined up at Coutume Cafe, and the coffee wasn’t good – it was the best I have had.  With the in-house coffee roaster and co-owner, Antoine Netien, named the Meilleur Torréfacteur de France (‘best roaster’ in France) in 2011 and baristas Nico and Kevin coming consecutively 2^nd and 3^rd in the National Barista Finals 2013 – Coutume Café has been creating a veritable storm in a coffee cup, of late.  And rightly so. Antoine, and co-owner Tom Clark import and roast some of the best beans the world has to offer. From extraction froid to flat white and siphon to soy latte, these boys do it right. What’s more, the weekend brunch is utterly mouthwatering. But make sure you reserve your spot in advance, or before you have time to wake up and smell the coffee your table might be already snapped up by a couple of Kooples.

Coutume Café
47 rue de Babylone 75007
Métro: Saint- François-Xavier
Tel: +33 1 45 51 50 47

 

Black Market 

Stepping into this delightfully cosy one room café tucked away in the maze of Montmartre, you have the impression you are entering your granny’s living room (in a good way). Vintage typewriters and well-loved books adorn the counters, and an old hat stand in the corner remains draped with with the coats of the uber trendy set that frequent Black Market (French band Justice were sipping their cortados at the counter when we arrived). Young owners Youssef and Baptiste serve up smooth, rich coffees (filters, espressos, iced-coffees, lattes, you name it) that leave a big smile under your milk moustache.  And with beans from Coutume Café, need I say more?

Full of yummy mummys, young loved-up couples, trendy freelance bloggers and, on my last visit, a man in a full pleather suit with chains – Black Market is so very Montmartre.

Black Market
27 rue Ramey 75018
Métro: Château Rouge

Ten Belles

Following in the theme of trendy hole in the wall cafés, Ten Belles is the epitome of minimalistic cool with its polished concrete floors, demountable plywood furniture and sparse but chaleureux mezzanine style fit-out.  The coffee machines are manned by two dashing young lads, Frenchman and owner Thomas Lehoux, and laid back Australian Chris, with great taste in music and even better taste in coffee (using beans roasted by Télescope).

Red lipsticked, high waisted jean wearing, balayaged bohemian locals pack the tables, tapping away on their Macs while enjoying their macs. But something tells me – perhaps the plethora of hot young things batting their lashes at the baristas, or the fact there is no reception or wifi – that most don’t come here to work…

Ten Belles, two beaux and a lot of seriously great coffee – what more could a gal want.

Ten Belles
10 Rue de la Grange aux Belles 75010
Métro: Goncourt, Jacques Bonsergent
Tel: +33 1 42 40 90 78

Article & Photos: Emerald Bond

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