I am usually dubious when an eatery claims to have gourmet coffee. Restaurants usually pay little attention to their coffee. Afterall, they want you to eat and leave, so the next folks can come in and sit and have some food.
What I don't like though is when a well established restaurant uses a good coffee company, and doesn't know how to make coffee. Every now and then my friend George tells me about how he has had Intelligentsia Coffee at a restaurant, and it was bad. I believe it was bad, because it has happened to me.
Let's say you have a wonderful dinner at well known restaurant, and now it's time for dessert and coffee. I typically am excited to see a coffee company I know mentioned on the menu, or by the server. Then I have the coffee, and I wonder, "What the Hell happened?"
What happened is you didn't get the coffee at its source. Let's say you go to your local fine coffee house. Those people are trained to understand the coffee they roast, how to properly brew it, and serve it.
When you go to the fancy restaurant, they have put ground versions of the fine coffee into a brewer, let it brew, and then it sits there. As coffee sits, the oils get all separated, and the wonderful taste that was there at the initial point of brewing is gone. What's left is a mere shell of what the coffee should taste like.
If this kind of coffee were a musical, it would be the Carrie Underwood "Sound of Music" and not the Julie Andrews version.
If you know all of this going into dessert, then the expectations are a bit lower. Better yet, after dinner, go to the local coffee house, and have a nice cup of java with a pastry from there. You'll have a better coffee experience.
Charlie
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