In Defense of Bad Coffee
Or, at least, the establishments that serve it
A waitress at a New England diner might approach your table with a bulbous carafe of coffee and offer to “warm you up” before refilling your inch thick mug with scorched black brew. The Greeks and Turks, on the other hand, use small copper pots attached to long handles to cook a steaming coffee sludge, spiced with cardamom, cinnamon, clove, etc. Meanwhile, in gay Paris, thousands of allongés and cafés crèmes pass across the trays of les garçons de café every day.
These are local coffee traditions, and they teach us a great deal about nations, regions, and towns. But across the world today, and increasingly in Paris, there’s a new generation of coffee shops devoid of any local culture. These shops don’t typically open their doors until around 9:30, and close them around 5 pm, limiting their clientele to remote workers, unemployed people, and trust fund babies. They also usually suffer from hipster service, meaning the staff is either completely indifferent to the presence of customers, or treats them as an imposition. They let you enter, watch you squirm for a while, unsure how to order, and then they have the nerve to address you with the utmost casual familiarity.
This week, in an effort to kill thirty minutes between appointments, I stepped into one of these hell capsules in the 5th arrondissement. The man at the counter invited me to take a seat, without ever bringing me a menu, and since not a single employee seemed to notice my presence, I decided to scan the other tables to discern my options.
Next to some of the laptops, I noticed tall cups filled with what looked like drip-filter coffee, so I did my best to order it with the information I had.
“Tu veux un v60 ou un café filtre?” (“Do you want a v60 or a filter coffee?”) a server finally asked me.
The Sopranos; Paulie orders just a coffee HD
I could barely hear her over all the remote workers, shouting Zoom-meeting insights into AirPods, their voices ricocheting off the bare concrete walls, rattling my every organ. But it wasn’t just the acoustics that irked me. It was the avocado toasts coming from the kitchen, the sloth-like pace of the staff, the whole damn miserable vibe.
My day may have been ruined had the coffee not been… well…delicious. Each sip was was fruity, funky, warm, and toasty. It was a far cry from the old school cafés, that—as far as I’m aware—don’t even use coffee beans. They just collect the prior day’s cigarette ashes and press them through the machine.
As I’ve written before, I frequent the old cafés, not for their coffee, but because they hand you a menu when you arrive, and they take your order promptly; because the tables are sturdy and the chairs don’t give you scoliosis; and because, if I were to suddenly wake from a deep sleep in one of these cafés, I’d see the zinc bar, the mosaic tiles, and the cast iron pillars, and immediately know I was in Paris. Wake me up in a new school coffee shop, on the other hand, and I wouldn’t be able to tell Massachusetts from Mongolia.
But sometimes, after drinking my umpteenth cup of cigarette ash, my tastebuds just can’t take anymore abuse.
Simple Coffee, 78 Rue des Martyrs, Paris 18
It has been an unlikely love story. On paper, Simple Coffee represents everything I try to avoid: vaguely American food, stratospheric prices, incomprehensible coffee terminology. And yet, I’m curiously head over heals for this place. But we’re all full of moral contradictions—Donald Trump’s most trusted advisor, for example, is somehow both jewish and a nazi—so if I can contain mine to my coffee shop preferences, I think I’m in pretty good shape.
I never would have gone to Simple had I not been invited by a friend about a year ago. I ordered a double espresso and a granola bowl which were both inconveniently outstanding. The coffee tasted like dried red berries and rich dark chocolate. The bowl was full of fresh fruit, home made rhubarb jelly, a ginger condiment, and creamy fromage blanc.
I’ve returned frequently since that first visit, trekking across most of the menu, and each time I’ve been similarly stunned. It all made sense when I learned Simple’s chef, Margaux, had cut her teeth in some of Paris’s most reputed bistronomique restaurants, like Les Arlots and Le Sélune. Those are some serious chops for a coffee shop.
But it’s not just the quality of the products that keeps me coming back. How refreshing it is to be served by a staff that actually want to be there; that take pride in what they make, even if what they make is a little hipster.
Falling in love with Simple Coffee has taught me, among other things, that I’m an asshole, and that there’s no reason to lament the new wave of specialty coffee shops in Paris; because, if Simple is any indication, they’re just another place to nerd out about food and drink. There’s plenty of room in this city for the old and new schools to co-exist, and thank God, because we need them both.
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See you next week,
Max