Fine Dining, Bad Coffee with the CoffeeMeister

by Erin Meister, Posted Oct 27th 2009 @ 3:00PM

A typical cappuccino. Photo: Karen Roe, Flickr.

Erin Meister trains baristas for North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee and sporadically maintains the blog Meet the Press Pot from her home in New York City. This is part of a series for the caffeine-addicted.

Ah, the triumphant leaning back in your chair after a great meal at the season's "it" restaurant, pushing away the licked-clean plate and wishing you could loosen your belt in polite company. "Why sure, we'd love to see the dessert menu. And I'll have a cappuccino."

But then the cappuccino comes. It's got bitter, thin espresso topped with stiff, dry peaks of overdone milk covered in heaps of cheap cocoa powder. And, well ... it's not worth the $6 they're charging for it.

Does it have to be this way? Can there be such a thing as truly great restaurant coffee? Find out after the jump.

First, let's think about what makes restaurant coffee so typically bad. To start, it's one of the only elements of a high-quality meal that often doesn't have any "professional" oversight. The chef designs and is responsible for the execution of the food; the beverage director and bartenders both have control over the wine and cocktail craft; the host and servers make sure the service and hospitality is top-notch. But who makes the coffee?

Sometimes it's the very harried servers, but more often it's the just-as-harried busboys -- which is not to say that either servers or busboys are unable to make great coffee. Quite the contrary -- I believe that anybody with the right training can make great coffee. But do they typically get that training? And do they have the time to follow through on the floor, juggling three things at once?

And frequently, truth be told, all the training in the world can't make bad coffee taste good. All too often when a restaurant is looking to cut corners, coffee is the first thing to suffer. A restaurateur can move plate after plate of Wagyu beef in the dining room, but if they're opening preground frac-packs of low-grade coffee or cranking out subpar espresso in the kitchen, that's the bad taste left in diners' mouths.

Are there restaurants doing it right? Absolutely -- Danny Meyer's elegantly understated New York City spot Gramercy Tavern serves coffee roasted by San Francisco's fantastic Blue Bottle Coffee Company; Bon Appétit's top 10 Best Restaurant winner Woodberry Kitchen (full disclosure: a Counter Culture account) saw its coffee ace Allie Caran place fifth in the Mid-Atlantic regional barista competition this year -- practically unheard of for an eatery. And more are joining the fray all the time.

Is serious coffee -- instead of seriously bad coffee -- the wave of the future for restaurants? Have you ever had an exceptional cup after a meal, or has a coffee ever ruined an otherwise lovely evening out? Tell us in the comments.

Filed Under: Drink Recipes, Chefs & Restaurants, Restaurants
Tags: baristas, cappuccino, coffee, coffeemeister, dinner, restaurant coffee

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

10-27-2009 @3:49PM Argentee said... Maybe I'm just lucky to live in Florida. La Septima, the Columbia, and the late Valencia restaurant all had great coffee. Maybe it's just that cuban restaurants take their coffee more seriously.
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10-27-2009 @5:32PM Christian said... It looks like the Bay Area may have rounded the bend with Camino. http://manseekingcoffee.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/caminorestaurant/ Also, I haven't tried it yet, but I know Baretta uses Ritual.
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10-28-2009 @11:49AM Jeffrey Bary said... I've eaten at many top NYC restaurants. Pretty much they all make bad coffee. I'm an espresso drinker so no amount of milk will cover the taste of a poorly prepared coffee. Also, the espresso often arrives well before the dessert shows up.

Next time I'm at Gramercy Tavern I'll give it a try.
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10-28-2009 @2:56PM greg said... > all the training in the world can't make bad coffee taste good

Actually, we've experienced bad coffee and equipment at some cafés outproducing the quality of espresso from good coffee and equipment at a number of restaurants. You can only do so much with what you have, but you can ruin a good pedigree quite easily.
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