There are many things I miss about living in San Francisco; the biggest is perhaps the coffee.
Between Four Barrel, my favorite, and Blue Bottle, a close runner up but far more ubiquitous, it’s hard to find yourself in that city wanting for a good cup of coffee. In Los Angeles, we’re not so lucky. People seem to be under the impression that Intelligentsia is good, but every experience I’ve had there has been ruined by outrageous lines, extremely rude employees who don’t even know what the pastries are that they are selling and are extremely put-out by your asking about them, a fight for seats and then once you find them endless quantities of cigarette smoke. Plus, I mean, I think their coffee just isn’t very good.
Cafecito Organico started out I have heard in the basement of Mama’s Tamales across from MacArthur Park and were called Basement Coffee or something—this could be incorrect; I have no idea. I used to get their beans at the Hollywood Farmer’s market when I was able to drag myself out of bed before 1 pm—not a frequent occurance. But now they have their own shop near Virgil Village and it’s a delightful 5 minute bike ride from my apartment to get probably the best freshly roasted coffee that Los Angeles has to offer. I have yet to sit down there for a cup of coffee, but I return again and again for beans. They recently got a new source of beans from Guatemala, and the beans are absolutely wonderful.
A runner up, and my choice when I lived in Hollywood, is Groundwork. I found their roasting to be a bit uneven—some batches were far better than others—but overall their coffees are very nice, and they thankfully haven’t succumbed to this atrocious habit of roasters talking about their coffees as if they are sommoliers describing wines. I mean frankly it is just repellant to have to have someone describe a coffee by saying it has “hints of …” and then lists a bunch of nonsense… Blue Bottle, Four Barrel, Cafecito Organico are guilty of this to some extent, but Intelligentsia really takes it to a whole new level of absurdity, with their orgasmic descriptions of coffees that read like a recounting of a four-course meal; let’s get serious here. Anyway, Groundwork also makes an excellent hot chocolate, and a spiced one with chile in it that is really delicious as well.