Scores:Coffee: 13/20
Whole experience (cafe + coffee): 25/40
Bean: Genovese
Nerds I’ve moved to Potts Point for six months, so bear with me as together, we drink (and occasionally eat) through the good, bad, wonderful and the ugly of this totally new area for my Sydney senses.
Nerd 2 and I, not knowing where to get a bite for breakfast decide walking down Macleay Street towards the water. This bright and sunny weekend morning finds people lining up for a dark and brooding cafés. Welcome to Potts Point.
We turned down a popular café street and ended up at Fratelli Paradish, one of the many Fratelli spin offs. I’m not sure why we picked this café as the first, but you have got to start somewhere! Like any Fratelli, it has that great looking wine bar style and by the wait crowd for a table, a great place to be seen (and eat?), even at 10am on a Sunday morning.The good news is that getting a table was not too hard, I did initially think it would be far harder judging by that crowd, however if you’re like us and prepared to be out of the action, sitting inside means you almost walk in. A waiter glided us to a table and then rushed off to seat others diners.
For a café which focuses on service (you can tell it does by the number of staff), I surprisingly found we were waiting quite a bit to be served a glass of water and be presented with menus. I guess a side effect of being seated inside?
When we were finally noticed water, was brought over, menus presented and then soon after our orders taken. Latte and tea were ordered along with two great egg meals.
As the battle for the coveted outside table raged on, we were presented with our coffee and tea. First thing I noticed was there was simply no design attempted on my coffee, I was hoping for something more stylish to match the feel of the café, the look of the diners and the quality of the food. The latte, otherwise had a great temperature and felt quite traditional Italian in it’s ratio of milk to foam to coffee. All good ticks.
Now onto the aroma. There was something of a vanilla like, to a quality deep roasted aroma to this coffee. Genovese is an interesting bean it never really tastes the same.Drinking it, the roasted aroma stepped back and there was an interesting tang and sweetness to the coffee. An interesting milk vs. cafe con leche taste. The body of the coffee was punchy and had a good strength to it leading towards quite a well balanced drink. Letting the coffee sit I found it became even sweeter in flavour, this is not a coffee I would ever consider going sugar with, not that that ever happens anyway…
As we had settled in with our meals, I ordered a second coffee, a long black. The crema was thick in that Italian style from the roasting, with a rich and complex smell which can be fantastic. That cafe con leche flavour was quite intoxicating in this form.
Overall, aside from the rushed look of the milk coffee and the hit or miss service of the inside table, it’s a quality job over all. Food is great and well priced, it’s a nice place and the coffee is solid. If this is an indication of the kinds of cafes in the area, there could be some winners here.
Scores:
1. Coffee score
Style (look and feel): 6/10 (long black far better)
Experience (taste and smell): 7/10
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Coffee total: 13/20
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2. Cafe score
Style (what’s it feel like): Potts Point wine bar for breakfast
Cool?: 7/10
Service: 5/10
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Cafe: 12/20
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Whole experience (coffee + cafe): 25/40
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