Ristretto in the News

We have our first-ever full-on review today, in Portland's Willamette Week:

We Portlanders are coffee people. In our admiration and appreciation of coffee, we rank with the world’s most serious drinkers: the Swedes, the Japanese, the Frisco kids. But for all our genuine adoration of coffee and cafes, we can’t match bona fide coffee towns in sheer variety of high-quality coffees on offer.

But with the opening of Ristretto Roasters’ second location, in “The Hub” foodie complex on North Williams Avenue, things just got a little more interesting. Owner Din Johnson has been roasting coffee commercially out of the original cafe on Northeast 42nd Avenue for three years. He has more or less paved the way for other small specialty roasters like Cherry, Courier, Cellar Door and Spella. And for that, we owe him.

Ristretto the Younger, however, takes coffee a little more seriously than its parent operation and is raising the bar. For one, the cafe is planning to offer regular, free coffee tastings (“cuppings,” in the parlance of the trade) to the public. They’ve even imported granite cupping tables from Brazil to prove they’re serious. (What’s a “cupping table,” you ask? A very expensive lazy Susan.)

They also take atmosphere seriously. With the help of Holst Architecture, the Ristretto team (including Johnson’s wife, Nancy Rommelmann, who has written for WW in the past) has built a beautiful space in which to appreciate coffee. The building’s soaring ceilings create dimensionality and, blissfully, dissipate some of the noise that comes stock-in-trade with a coffee operation. The cafe itself is lifted, too—drinkers enter and climb a half-staircase to the raised floor. The effect is theatrical: the midmorning pick-me-up made manifest.

It goes on, and while writer Hanna Neuschwander has some quibbles with the espresso -- quibbles that, this morning, Din said may have some merit; that the espresso in our first two weeks of opening may not have been as dialed in as he likes [which sounds sort of arcane, which it is, espresso being a mix of beans that needs to be properly blended and balanced and allowed to rest and breathe. It's beautiful now, lively and smooth] -- she's a really good writer, and clearly got the space and what it means and can mean.

I'm actually sitting in the cafe now (of course we have wifi), playing spy to see if/how many new faces show up. Having been for years on the other side of writing reviews, I know the impact they can have. I baked some extra muffins.

For those who can't come in person, check out the photos Dylan Long, a photographer and one of our baristas took, below. Also, go buy some coffee beans, will ya?

Posted by Nancy Rommelmann | Permalink

We Portlanders are coffee people. In our admiration and appreciation of coffee, we rank with the world’s most serious drinkers: the Swedes, the Japanese, the Frisco kids. But for all our genuine adoration of coffee and cafes, we can’t match bona fide coffee towns in sheer variety of high-quality coffees on offer.

But with the opening of Ristretto Roasters’ second location, in “The Hub” foodie complex on North Williams Avenue, things just got a little more interesting. Owner Din Johnson has been roasting coffee commercially out of the original cafe on Northeast 42nd Avenue for three years. He has more or less paved the way for other small specialty roasters like Cherry, Courier, Cellar Door and Spella. And for that, we owe him.

Ristretto the Younger, however, takes coffee a little more seriously than its parent operation and is raising the bar. For one, the cafe is planning to offer regular, free coffee tastings (“cuppings,” in the parlance of the trade) to the public. They’ve even imported granite cupping tables from Brazil to prove they’re serious. (What’s a “cupping table,” you ask? A very expensive lazy Susan.)

They also take atmosphere seriously. With the help of Holst Architecture, the Ristretto team (including Johnson’s wife, Nancy Rommelmann, who has written for WW in the past) has built a beautiful space in which to appreciate coffee. The building’s soaring ceilings create dimensionality and, blissfully, dissipate some of the noise that comes stock-in-trade with a coffee operation. The cafe itself is lifted, too—drinkers enter and climb a half-staircase to the raised floor. The effect is theatrical: the midmorning pick-me-up made manifest.

It goes on, and while writer Hanna Neuschwander has some quibbles with the espresso -- quibbles that, this morning, Din said may have some merit; that the espresso in our first two weeks of opening may not have been as dialed in as he likes [which sounds sort of arcane, which it is, espresso being a mix of beans that needs to be properly blended and balanced and allowed to rest and breathe. It's beautiful now, lively and smooth] -- she's a really good writer, and clearly got the space and what it means and can mean.

I'm actually sitting in the cafe now (of course we have wifi), playing spy to see if/how many new faces show up. Having been for years on the other side of writing reviews, I know the impact they can have. I baked some extra muffins.

For those who can't come in person, check out the photos Dylan Long, a photographer and one of our baristas took, below. Also, go buy some coffee beans, will ya?