bl ack dots WOR L D C O F F E E G U I DE
Author & Illustrations
Barbara Aichinger
Copyright © 2017 by Barbara Aichinger All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Illustrations, Text and Design by Barbara Aichinger Illustration Support by Pia Ochoa Torrent, Karen Alvizo Chávez Printed in México First Printing, 2017
Contents Introduction
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Austria 10 Café Erde
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Ramasuri 12 Slovakia 14 Schöndorf bio cafe Czech Republic Restaurace Plevel
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Portugal 18 Restaurante Pimenta Rosa
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France 20 Mama Baker
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Germany 22 vju 22 Ben Rahim
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Turkey 26 Thales Bistro
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Mexico 28 Café P'al Real
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La Tetería
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Your stories
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FOR THOSE WHO KEEP ON SEA RCHI NG
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Introduction
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Introduction The book you’re holding in your hands is a small collection of my favourite coffee places in the world. Whether I am travelling or living abroad, I always need to know where you could go and get some damn good coffee (and yes, this is a saying out of “Twin Peaks” – if you don’t know this fabulous TV series from David Lynch, please grab a coffee and watch it). I can’t tell you when my addiction started, but it grew fast and strong. Now, there is no day without coffee in my life and everytime I try, I can’t stop drinking it. The same goes for travelling and getting to know new places – I’m happy to say that there is no need to get rid of those lovely activities. When drinking a good cup of coffee, I feel very satisfied, full of peace and grateful. It brings me joy and reminds me of how lucky I am to be able to go there and have a coffee. Let me share with you those places which are, in my opinion, the black pearls of coffee sources in this world. If you travel and you go there, please sit down and enjoy. At the end of the book there are some pages left blank. These pages are for you. Take a pen or a pencil or ask the waiter for one and write down or draw your coffee experience to share it with others. Have comments or stories that you would like to share with me? I’d be happy to read them: aichingerbarbara.design@gmail.com
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Austria
Austria
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Andreas-Hofer-Platz 3 8010 Graz Public Transport Bus to Andreas-Hofer-Platz cafeerde.com +43 316 82 03 13 Opening Hours Monday to Saturday 11:30 am – 10 pm Sunday 5 pm – 10 pm
C afé E rde not only serves great local coffee, but delicious vegan food and live music sessions too. Most of their products come from the region in and around Graz. The word “Erde” means earth, ground or terra and stands for their commitment to serving good, fresh products, mainly from plants and to be open for the whole world. Its very comfortable atmosphere allows you to stay for a while and observe the happenings on the street through the big window. In the evenings, you might find yourself enjoying a little concert, a comedy night or a vegetarian meeting.
Ramasuri Ramasuri is an Austrian slang word used for mess, chaos, potpourri. Don’t ask why, but there are a lot of funny words for this in Austria. “Tohuwabohu” is one of them. The dishes and the service you find in Ramasuri aren’t a chaos at all, though. The milk they use for an excellent “Melange” (typical café speciality in Vienna) is organic. If you don’t like it it with lactose they also offer soy or almond milk. In addition to a big variety of delicious and creative breakfast options, there is a big perk for those who sleep-in on the weekends: On Saturday, you can have breakfast until 4 pm; on Sunday until 3 pm. If you do this, make sure to bring some friends so you can try more of the menu. The price range is a bit higher compared to other cafés but so is the quality. Located in the second district, a visit to Ramasuri might also lead to a walk next to the Donaukanal. You may also find yourself discovering the hidden treasures of the quarter before or after having this great coffee. The MAK (Museum of Applied Arts), the beautiful Augarten or the famous Prater are all
Austria
located close by Ramasuri.
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Austria
13
Praterstraße 19 1020 Wien
+43 676 466 80 60 Opening Hours
Public Transport
Monday to Wednesday
U1 to Nestroyplatz / U4 to
8 am – 12 pm
Schwedenplatz
Thursday to Saturday
ramasuri.at
8 am – 2 am Sunday 9 am – 4 pm
Obchodná 528/48m 811 06 Staré Mesto Bratislava Public Transport Once in the center, walk. +421 902 117 717 Opening Hours Monday to Friday 8:15 am – 6:30 pm Saturday 10 am – 3 pm
Schöndor f bio cafe Slovakia
Bratislava is a small city in Slovakia, a short train or bus ride away from Vienna. On any day or weekend trip, caffeine is like a lifeblood. Luckily, you can easily walk up to the castle and enjoy the view with eyes wide open. Why the damn good coffee is so hidden in Bratislava might stay a mystery (maybe to avoid all of the tourists) but once you know where it is, it’s not hard to find the way. After walking into a small courtyard, you see the Schöndorf Bio Café with its 14
Slovakia
15
wooden furniture and stylish natural decoration welcoming coffee hungry people with organic beverages and food. Vegans are welcome and children, too. The waffles are amazing and if you’re not able to decide what they should be served with, you can just get everything. For people who do not speak a word of Slovakian, a dictionary is not necessary. The friendly staff translate words like nepečený or čerstvej for you.
Czech Republic
On the search for late breakfast I once stumbled into a nice traditional looking restaurant in Prague. They didn’t offer breakfast but had some desserts in the menu, along with really great coffee of which I drank two cups in a row because I loved it so much. Its location outside the touristy city center makes it super cozy and calm. The area Krymská is already getting more popular, so you’d better hurry up to enjoy it before it changes too much. Hopefully Restaurace 16
Czech Republic
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Krymská 2 101 00 Praha 10 Public Transport Metro A Náměstí Míru / Tram 4,22, 57, 59 Krymská / Bus 135 restauraceplevel.cz +420 273 160 041 Opening Hours Monday to Wednesday 10 am – 11 pm Thursday to Friday 10 am – 11:45 pm Saturday 11 am – 11:45 pm Sunday 11 am – 10 pm
Re staurace Pl evel Plevel will stay like it is forever: the best option in Prague for vegetarians and coffee addicts. With two floors you can enjoy its extremely beautiful inside with flowers on the wall and a little piano next to the tables. Their dishes vary depending the season, their desserts make you melt away. Compared to prices in other countries in Europe, eating and drinking in Plevel is not expensive, so you can try more than one plate.
Restaurante Pimenta Rosa If you love chocolate cake, this restaurant is a must. Grab a coffee here and your time to savor a huge piece of superdark chocolate cake. Hidden in a small shopping mall, the Miguel Bombarda’s Comercial Center, this place is a real secret tip. Don’t expect little portions here but enjoy nice prices and a calm terace to sit and enjoy a homemade cake or pizza – whatever suits you best with your coffee or tea. If you can’t manage to finish a huge piece of cake
Portugal
yourself, bring a friend with you and have fun.
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Rua de Miguel Bombarda 285 4350-381 Porto Public Transport Metro D to Aliados +351 933 662 289 Opening Hours Monday to Saturday 10 am – 9 pm
Portugal
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France
France
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Mama Baker Nice is one of the most expensive cities in France (at least for my range), but at the same time it is super exciting, full of art and French charm as well. There are a lot of tourist places which might serve you middle-rate products, so you’d better know where to spend your money well. I’d recommend this small, but fine organic bakery. The owners of Mama Baker travelled around the world and came back to France to jump from their previous jobs in the financial sector to owning a small bakery that offers handmade breads of all kinds. The result: remarkable. They have everything: from bread with nuts to sweet little breads with orange. Whenever you walk by, step inside for a coffee and try one of those great pastries. The owner might sell it to you and start a little chat while his handsome wife will wave with her hands full of flour. No matter how badly your day may be going otherwise, a stop-by at this place will cheer you up for hours. After I had a nice little breakfast there, I was so happy that my boyfriend almost got worried.
13 Rue de Lépante 06000 Nice Public Transport Bus 04 / 17 / CE / N3 to Notre Dame / Bus C to Désambrois +33 6 23 91 33 86 Opening Hours Monday to Saturday 7:30 am – 7:30 pm
vju
Hamburg offers a lot of really nice cafés which you can’t overlook, but one of particular note is located outside the heart of the city. It has views over the harbor and the city behind it. To get there, take the S-Bahn out of the city to the south, where more and more artists make their living off the beaten track:
Germany
Wilhelmsburg. You have to change and get on a bus to Neuhöfer Straße or have a nice long walk there. The special thing about vju is its building : an old
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Germany
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vju im Energiebunker Neuhöfer Straße 7 21107 Hamburg Public Transport S3 / S31 to Wilhelmsburg Bus 152 / Bus 151 to Neuhöfer Straße www.vju-hamburg.de +49 1575 85 537 06 Opening Hours Friday 12 am – 6 pm Saturday and Sunday 10 am – 6 pm
bunker from WW2, now reused as a so called “energy bunker” which produces solar energy. To learn more about the history and energy production, tours are offered on the weekend. Conveniently, the tour ends with brunch! After this nice start to the day, you can enjoy the view towards Hamburg and get to know more of Wilhelmsburg or take a ferry boat or the Elbtunnel back to the other side.
Sophienstraße 7 10178 Berlin Public Transport S5 / S7 / S3 to Hackescher Markt / U8 to Weinmeisterstraße benrahim.de +49 30 28 88 60 34 Opening Hours Monday to Friday 8 am – 6 pm Saturday and Sunday 10 am – 6 pm
Ben Rahim When Ben Rahim opened its doors in March 2016, I felt blessed and extremely relieved that such an awesome place had opened down the street from Germany
where I worked to get coffee in the morning or afternoon. The description “Specialty Coffee” doesn’t lie; instead, it explains the cafe pretty well: from espresso to filter coffee varieties, you can try the taste of Arabian and Tunisian flavours. Their coffee 24
Germany
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comes from London and is available for sale, packaged, as well. Take care, though: they will ask you how you’d like it to be ground. If you don’t know, let them do their job and tell them what kind of coffee drinker you are. I had a lot of coffees to go from there and was never disappointed. Set aside some time to enjoy the “third wave” coffee in a nice Arabic atmosphere which reminds me a bit of Portugal and watch the real baristas in real barista outfits following their passion. Maybe you will even see a white cat sitting on a bench. Don’t wonder: You are in Berlin, and yes, this is wonderland.
Turkey
Thales Bistro
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Turkey
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Sinanpaşa Mahallesi, Köyiçi Cad No:10 34353 Beşiktaş/İstanbul Public Transport Bus to Beşiktaş Meydan thalescafebar.com +90 212 327 27 20 Opening Hours Monday to Sunday 9 am to 2 am
You might think Istanbul is really no place to drink coffee. And yes, you’re right. Usually you’d have a Turkish Çai which gives you a delicious kick. But if you’re a coffee-for-breakfast-person, you’ll have plenty of options, as well. For an amazing breakfast with either coffee or Çai, I recommend the thales bistro in Beşiktaş. Their breakfast surprises in its variety. A lot of small bowls on the table give the chance to taste many different flavors with Turkish bread. The year I went to visit a friend in Istanbul, it had snowed there and people freaked out about 1 cm of snow (it hasn’t snowed there in four years). The schools were closed and the whole city was in chaos. Luckily, thales bistro has a retractable roof and we could sit in a cosy warm and very colorful room and talk about real snow chaos before we took the ferry to the Asian part of Istanbul.
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Mexico
Mexico
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Libertad 1697 Americana 44160 Guadalajara Public Transport Bus to Libertad Robles Gil / Bus to Paz - Bruselas / Bus to Calle López Cotilla +52 33 3632 6779 Opening Hours Monday to Saturday 8 am – 23 pm Sunday 8 – 22 pm
La Tetería This is the perfect place to go for coffee or any kind of tea. If you’re not sure which tea you prefer, you are allowed to smell the different packages and choose what seems best for you. The ambience is very charming and calm, in a street with many plants and very little traffic. Sit on the terace on a sunny morning and enjoy your coffee with delicious breakfast options or try out new sorts of tea. Compared to other coffee places in this big Mexican city, you get a really good deal here with moderate prices. What I liked a lot was the creative vintage furniture set there to relax.
Café P’al Real Living in Mexico is not that bad for a coffee junkie like me. The coffee of Latin America tastes so much more like coffee than anywhere else. When arriving here, I wanted to meet someone from the local community and ask to go for a coffee. I was so lucky that the person recommended to me was addicted too and he showed me one of the best places he knows. The coffee I had there was accompanied by delicious breakfast and cake. What else could you ask for? I enjoyed the good start in a new adventure full of caffeine and I hoped that I’ll find a lot more places like this. Café P’al Real only sells coffee from Mexico, a thing that makes so much sense to me but unfortunately isn’t totally common in this city. Mexico
Customer’s decisions will determine whether there will be good products from the locals around or whether they will disappear. And with this thought, I’d like to end this book to let you start your own coffee diary on the next pages. 30
Mexico
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Calle Lope de Vega 113 Arcos Vallarta 44130 Guadalajara Public Transport Bus to Calle Lope de Vega +52 33 1983 7254 Opening Hours Tuesday to Saturday 8 am – 11:30 pm Sunday 8 am – 2 pm
Thanks to Rainer Csar, Katharina Liedl and Jakob Mayr for reminding me of the names of the places
Karen Alvizo Chávez and Pia Macarena Ochoa Torrent for drawing Ramasuri and La Tetería
Rocío Guillén for supervising and teaching
Peter Schmitt and Jan Wisniewski for copy-editing and improving my English
BLACK DOTS was printed in April 2017 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, MĂŠxico. This edition consists of 10 copies, hand-produced thread stitching by galiar, numbered and signed by the author. The book was set in Fira Sans and Lovelo Black. More stories can be found on blackdotsproject.blogspot.com This is copy number