On this last trip, I went to one coffee place worth visiting. And it’s the same place several coffee nuts told me to go to, from James Hoffmann of Square Mile Coffee Roasters to Nicholas Cho of Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters.
It’s La Caféothèque (52 rue de l’Hôtel de Ville), and it’s delightful. It doesn’t look anything like a French café (no tables outside) or an American coffee bar (no visible tattoos). It’s so homey, so disarming, that it takes a moment to register that it’s for purists: single-origin espresso drinks only, made with direct-trade beans roasted in-house.