Monday, February 19, 2018

Café Chiado



Café Chiado has been on my Montreal café list forever! This is a Portuguese café located in the Rosemont - La Petite-Patrie area, inspired by the Chiado neighbourhood in Lisbon which crossesTram No 28. This neighbourhood in Portugal is very artsy and was traditionally filled with a various merchants. Today it's a popular tourist spot, filled with good restaurants, cafés and shopping. It also has a number of historic monuments and theatres.

I enjoyed an americano with my friend C. They serve Portuguese roasted coffee, and offer hot and cold drinks as well as pastries including the traditional natas. Chiado is a beautiful bi-level coffee shop where you can catch up with friends and pretend you're in Europe for a day.


Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Montreal Coffee Academy



Last year two of my friends got me a gift card for the Montreal Coffee Academy for my birthday and it was one of my favourite gifts ever!! I had a few different classes to choose from, but I ultimately landed on the Coffee Tasting History and Terroir class.

This ended up being a semi-private class of 2 hours that covered everything from the history of coffee from seed to cup to demystifying coffee labels. I learned so much about coffee's history (Did you known Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee or that Yemen was the first country that coffee was commercially grown in back in the 1400s / 1500s?). It as also interesting to hear about the roasting process. There are three different ways to roast coffee: the natural or dry process, the washed process or the semi-washed process and each will results in a very different tasting bean.

We ended the class with a tasting of coffees via "cupping" and learning to read coffee labels. I learned that although I like the love the smell of fruity coffee, I prefer the taste of a nutty coffee since it's got less acidity! It's also great to know what to look for in labels now when I'm shopping for a bag of coffee beans (ie the region, the farm, and the roast dates). Often we'll read a label that will tell us the notes of the coffee like cherry, chocolate or champagne but it's key not to pay too much attention to that since everybody interprets notes differently!

The Montreal Coffee Academy offers all sorts of classes form latté art and espresso theory to intensive barista training. I loved the class I took and I think it's helped me appreciate my morning coffee even more! Thanks ladies for the best gift ever!






Monday, February 5, 2018

Le Berri Café



I'm catching up on my ICP blog posts, and Le Berri Café was one of my favourites this past summer! They are the quintessential neighbourhood café / restaurant in the Villerey neighbourhood. They have a gorgeous terrace and there is plenty of seating inside! It seems like they are more popular from brunch but nobody bothered me when I ordered my coffee and read my book. My cappuccino was delicious - perfectly balanced and not too milky or bitter! Their food looked delicious as well so I'll have to come back to try it with some friends! Don't miss out if you're in the neighbourhood!

Update: Google has told me that unfortunately this café is permanently closed.