Artisans Focacceria

Artisan Focacceria, cnr Palmer and Liverpool Sts, Darlinghurst, Sydney

This is a post I sent to the alt.coffee newsgroup in early Aug '05 about Artisans:

So I dropped in there this morning to check it out.

Its _good!_ The staff seemed nice and friendly and passionate about
their coffee (a guy walked in and asked for "a skim flat white and two
ordinary flat whites please", and got the response "sorry, we won't serve
'ordinary' coffee, we only make 'great' coffee"). The atmosphere was
cool, less hectic than Single Origin, but not as tranquil as Tobys
Estate's City Rd store, a good balance I think. The food menu looked
interesting (I just had toast though, and it was good - the jam was
excellent!)

The Robur has a doser, but they're running it with the dosing chamber
completely empty, and with only a few hundred grams of beans in the
hopper. I should have taken more notice of who's roast they're using,
but I didn't (they have "branded" espresso cups and saucers, but I've
already forgotten the brand...)[1]. The Marzocco holds pride of place in
the cafe - they're obviously pretty proud of it - it makes the place
instantly feel like a "serious coffee place".

But what you _really_ want to know about is the coffee, right?

I had a latte and an espresso.

The espresso was _really_ good - nice thick crema, smooth creamy
mouthfeel, great flavour with just the right amount of bitterness. It
was served in an appropriately warmed cup. I really enjoyed it.

The latte was good, but not great - the actual shot was probably great,
but the milk wasn't quite right, not quite as smooth as I'm used to from
places like Single Origin or Tobys Estate. It was perfectly drinkable,
but as I said, not "great". (It did have a nice rosetta on it though.)

All up I'd rate them based on todays visit as somewhere between good and
excellent, with a suspicion that they're only being held back from
approaching excellence by teething problems (I'm pretty sure they
weren't open yet when I went past on the weekend, so they've only
actually been open a few days).

I'll be back. If you're in the East Sydney/Darlinghurst/Oxford St area,
take a detour down to the corner of Liverpool and Palmer - if you read
this newsgroup, it'll definitely be worth you while.

(No affiliation, just a satisfied customer. Sydney needs more "serious
coffee" cafes. I'm happy to support them when they turn up.)

Update: 2006 05 10 Its Di Lorenzo coffee they're using. I just got mail from Scott at Di Lorenzo letting me know.

As I mentioned in the original article, I intended to return and I have been back, quite regularly as it turns out, and it continues to impress. As I expected, the slightly short of "great" latte was in fact just teething problems, Sam (the usual weekday Barista and part owner) has really got that nailed, and Scott who works Saturdays came 2nd in the Australian Barista Championship a few weeks back (losing out to David Makin from Victoria, but beating Hazel by half a point! No shame in "only" coming second in that sort of company...). The food is consistently interesting and good, having (in my opinion) a much higher priority than most other local "good coffee" places - Campos don't really do food at all, Mecca and Single Origin do, but they clearly focus on the coffee rather than the food, where Artisan manage to hold their own in the coffee stakes against them, while at the same time managing a modern seasonal menu (check it out at the Artisans website).