For those of you who are not yet aware, Crema Magazine has just released their picks of Melbournes Top 5 Cafe's (judged solely on the quality of the coffee, not things like ambiance, food etc.).
The list reads as follows:
1. Brother Baba Budan
2. Liar Liar
3. Maling Room
4. 7 Grams
5. First Pour
All of these cafe's are superb and if you haven't been, are well worth checking out!! But I thought I'd post a few things I noticed between the five.
*This one's obviouse but still, top 2 cafes both using a Clover
*Top 3 cafe's all use a synesso espresso machine (with both the others using a LMZ Fb80)
*A good spread of roasters with only Veneziano being represented twice (7grams and first pour)
*A good mix of roaster (machinery) talent, with renagades used for BBB and Liar Liar, a Probat for the Maling room, and a wierd custom job that was build for and later adapted by Peter wolf roasting for 7grams and first pour
*Another interesting thing (for me anyway) was that there was no trend in terms of food service. Some of the cafe's in the top 5 do little or on food, while others have fairly in depth menu's and in fact serve some of the best breakfast in Melb (IMO).
I know food was not a pre-requisite, I only mention this as it's always going to be harder to manage a dedicated coffee bar and a dedicated kitchen, than just a dedicated coffee bar
Anyone else have any thoughts?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
hey Ian! I think is a pretty fair rank! I've been to 3 of them and would definitely rate them high! At all 3 i've had a different but equally impressive cup, i really question the consistency of espresso at Brother Baba Budan. Do you think that its not a very fair rank?
I totally agree with the top five, though not necesarily the order. Though, at this level it's really hard to pick who's 1st and whose 2nd etc. (Though for what it's worth I still put the Maling room @ #1).
From my experience I can't question the consistency at BrotherBB, it's always been on the money for me, but that's the thing with coffee and food. It only takes one bad shot (or plate of food) to get you a bad review (especially on someones blog).
Hope your having fun over there, when you gettin' home?
Hi Ian, great observations.... I noticed the same things you noted when I was reading it the other day. I haven't been to Vic for a while now, but am planning on doing a 'coffee tour' soon... all these ahve been on my short list though.
Dan Yee
Great Dan, be sure to let me know how you go!
I'm with you Ian, definitely the Maling Room at number 1 ;-)
How's the shop coming along???
Hey Ian,
I could probably give you a long response to this post, but the longer the response, the longer the chances of misinterpretation. In brief:
*Great coffee at all of the places, but on any given day the rankings will be totally reversed.
*I think that producing a ranked top five list that was to be taken seriously would probably require something like 20 cafes being reviewed eight times in six months by at least two different reviewers. That's probably not feasible for anyone.
*Despite all of the flowery language, I don't think that coffee reviewers are at a stage where their reviews give any more information than "good, go here" or "bad, stay away."
*At one stage or another, I have had undrinkable coffee at every single one of those cafes. That's not to be mean, or anything like that - just to point out that inconsistency plagues even the best places ... and to lament that I still think that public coffee discussion is still at a stage where what you say boils down to "good" or "bad."
*Just in case someone comes along and is ... silly ... enough to think that my last bullet point means that I am saying the cafes listed are "bad," I'' say that I think that those five cafes are certainly in the top tier.
*Cutting the rankings off at 5 is totally arbitrary. For example, I had a fantastic espresso at Atomica a few months ago, but they're not on the list. Perhaps that's a conscious effort to put a diverse bunch of roasters in there and Maling Room is already on the list. Still, I think that it's entirely possible that on a given day Atomica would dish out better coffee than some or all of those places. And Atomica aren't the only ones to miss out.
*The fascination with Clover is understandable ... but why no corresponding interest in drip coffee? I was talking to one of the dudes at BBB today and he was saying that, despite having a clover and corresponding mahlkoenig, their coffee sales are almost entirely beans destined to be run through an espresso machine.
*I have to say that I was surprised not to see a single HX machine make it up there, but, come to think of it, I can't think of a cafe using a HX that I'd rate up there. There must be one, though.
*For what it's worth, I think that BBB, LL and 7gms all use RBs. MR and 1st Pour probably switch around a lot more, but coffeelab and espro feature.
*There's a lot of ACF in those cafes; MR, 7gms and 1st Pour are using Libbey for lattes. BBB is with duralex. Not sure what Nolan is using.
*I'm pretty sure that all of those cafes are using RO + remineralisation.
*All roburs as the main grinder (unless Nolan has gone back to the Anfim).
Yeah. That's my attempt at a short response.
Cheers,
Luca
haha, well said!
I think it's interesting about the clover also. Australia is such a stubborn market, it's either instant, or espresso. It'd be nice to see more brewing styles feature at prominent cafes, but at the end of the day, cafe's need to be market focussed, and it's just not where the market is at the moment.
Hopefully we'll see a trend towards alternate brewing styles in the near future (especially as I plan for it to be a big part of my cafe), and certainly the clover will help this along.
As for it's major appeal, I really think it's the price tag that helps this along. The whole "it's expensive so it must be good". Don't get me wrong, I love the clover and some of the flavours it brings to the cup. But I also love siphon, plunger, aeropress, drip (etc etc!), but as you said, none of these (and many more) have ever gotten similar attention (in the cafe) in Australia. Maybe we should make a $10,000 siphon (wait a minute, they did! And it got heaps of attention, I think I'm on to something ;p)
Nice points on the tamps, grinder and water filtration too, and that it's cut back to only the top 5. In every other state in Aus I think "top 5" works well, but for Melbourne there are just way too many.
As for the Hx debate, we all know that a great barista can pull fantastic shots on a decent e61, and in fact, I think i'm actually swaying over to the curved temp profile debate. But in a volume cafe, with such a shortage of great barista's (aust wide) I think you'd be pretty ball-sy to open a cafe, with the thought of being the very best in the state/country, with a Hx as your primary.
I would love to put everyone on an even playing field. Everyone doing 55kg a week, managing 250 to 300 breakfast on a busy day and there own staff roasting there coffee.
Top 5 is bullshit. It doesn't help the industry and makes customers more annoying. We had a customer come in and order a cafe latte with half water. So we suggested a long mac. She said "no" We then told her our barista will not make that. Then she said "Liar Liar" do that and I guess that's why they are number 2 and you are 3.We have had so many idiots come in. Wannabe experts on drinking milk and crap. We are back to retraining and educating customers again.
The wannabe experts are bagging all of us. I know my loyal customers are bagging BBs, Liar Liar, First pour and 7 grams. I'm sure they are doing it to the Maling Room at the other cafes!!!
Now we have had huge amounts of people come in for the reviews which is great. But it should be more of a top 5 in no number order. The review had a lot of bias towards us. Why did every cafe that was mention had a photo shoot, new statements and stories from each shop? Even the special mention cafes got a story and photo shoot. We just had a repeat on the same write up we got last year. We haven't served Sidamo for 18 months!!!!!! My staff worked really hard this year and we got last years review.
I would love them to do 5 best cafes
Best team
Best tandem team
All the cafes in the top 5 talk to each other and are willing to help each other push forward to making a better cup. The restaurant industry don't do that. We push Melbourne forward and we all network together.
Thanks for the positive feedback guys. Your opinion means so much more to me than the crema rating.
Post a Comment