Bacino Bar

On the corner of The Corso, a pedestrian thoroughfare lined with surf shops, bars, and ice-creameries in Sydney’s Manly, is Bacino Bar. The little hole-in-the-wall café or “little Italy,” as its owners Marcelo Vieira and Lido Russo call it, is a popular drop in for both beach-dwellers and those on their way to work.

“The café is located on Manly corso between the wharf and the ocean. Many of our customers come by to sit and watch the passing parade of tourists as they sip on a wonderful coffee,”says Marcelo.

Opened in August 2000, Marcelo says the café’s Italian feel is a reflection of Lido and his brother’s heritage. However, its enviable position in the trendy Sydney suburb gives it a distinctly Manly feel. “Most of our customers are locals that come back twice, maybe three times a day,” says Marcelo. “They live down here on the beach and that kind of lifestyle means we get lots of laid-back, easy-going coffee lovers stopping in throughout the day.”

Marcelo says that the café has a reputation for having a good atmosphere and good service, but what sets it apart is its coffee.

Part of a network of seven Bacino cafés, Bacino Bar in Manly serves the company’s own Little Italy coffee. The seven cafés, which are located in various spots across New South Wales, each use the house blend for their espresso based drinks – which the public can take home for themselves as whole beans, ground beans, and in a decaf variety.

The Manly café serves up its namesake coffee on a Sanremo Verona TCS four-group machine, which is designed to produce high quantities of coffee – something Marcelo says Bacino Bar does almost every day.

“We’ve closed the doors two days of every year since we opened in 2000. During that time the coffee community has grown considerably down here, and also undergone a number of changes,” says Marcelo.

Marcelo says Bacino Bar is currently experiencing a similar trend to that increasingly reported by Australian cafés, which is the changing milk preference of its customers.

“Over the past five years especially we’ve seen a lot more demand for alternatives to dairy milk, and soy consumption in particular has gone up considerably,” he says. “Whereas a few years ago we might have gone through one litre of soy a day, these days we are going through up to 10 litres.”

Bacino Manly has been using Vitasoy for a number of years now, which Marcelo describes as a consistent performer in the coffee making process.

“Because we want to maintain the reputation we have for exceptional coffee, we need milk that will produce the same result each time,” he says. “With Vitasoy we find that’s what we get, which keeps both the baristas and our customers happy.”

In the business of satisfying customers, Marcelo says Bacino Bar has one breakfast dish on the menu that they’ve agreed to continue serving all day, despite the fact that the rest of the breakfast options finish at lunch.

“Our Italian scrambled eggs are definitely a standout favourite dish for almost everyone who has had the chance to sample our menu,” he says. “We’ve been serving them up for the breakfast crowd since we opened the doors, but as was the request of many Bacino Bar regulars, we’re now cooking scrambled eggs in the afternoons too.”

The Italian scrambled eggs are cooked with tomato, pancetta, parmigiano cheese, and fresh basil. It is served on a slice of fresh ciabatta loaf with Bacino Bar’s special hollandaise sauce.

As the weather warms up and Sydney beaches see an influx of visitors flock to its shores, Marcelo says he expects to be dishing out even more eggs and coffee to the holiday crowd.

“I look forward to our busiest months as it just means more people to talk to,” he says. “So many of us these days spend more time at work than at home. Fortunately at this café the customers and staff have become our own big family. I don’t call this a job – this is the place I go to socialise.”

Havana Coffee Works

Walking into Havana Coffee Works, visitors will easily forget they are in the heart of Wellington. Instead, guests are transported to a Cuban oasis in the Caribbean, with rustic wooden furnishings and eclectic paraphernalia.

“I love Cuba and its grand opulent architecture, beautiful cars, music, cigars, and rum. Havana Coffee Works has got all that and more,” says Co-Founder Geoff Marsland, who travels to Cuba regularly.

Geoff and Co-Owner Tim Rose have been friends for years. In the late 1980s they met up in Vancouver, Canada and fell in love with the city’s late-night café culture. It inspired them to bring back a coffee machine to New Zealand. Together they opened Midnight Espresso in 1989, followed by Deluxe café three months later.

In order to manage a consistent supply of well-roasted coffee, Tim and Geoff started roasting their own coffee. To do so, they introduced New Zealand’s first fluid-bed hot air roaster, producing 150 kilograms a week.

In 1997 Geoff travelled to Cuba and met with the local coffee farmers. “In the early years of importing coffee we became part of the Fairtrade movement, but we got disillusioned and started Real Trade in the late 1990s,” says Geoff. “The concept is about establishing long-standing, close relationships with all the people involved in the production and distribution of green coffee from farm to café.”

Havana Coffee Works was born in 1989 as a dedicated coffee roasting business. The company now supplies coffee to more than 250 cafés in New Zealand. The Tory Street site roasts five tonnes a week on a 60-kilogram Petroncini hot air drum roaster, with electric blowers that supercharge the roast. The venue is inundated with visitors who flock to the adjoining Havana Lounge to savour their daily cup of coffee on a La Marzocco machine, or partake in one of the daily coffee training classes.

“We have an open door policy. People are welcome to come into the factory, workshop, training centre, or coffee bar talk to staff and try our coffee,” says Geoff. “Our coffee is great but our customer service and machine service are second to none too.”

Havana Coffee Works serves an extensive range of eight blends. Geoff says the standouts include the Afro Cuba, Krazy espresso blend, Organic, and Five Star blend, which is an all-round “crowd pleaser”.

Alternative brew methods are available, in addition to 14 single origin coffees, which Havana Coffee Works has imported for the past 20 years. Favourites include beans from Bolivia, and Cuba – of course.

In the past three years Geoff has also committed to planting 25,000 coffee trees on Tanna Island – his own direct supply in the Pacific.

“Our motto is ‘the coffee you feel’. After 25 years it still surprises me how much fun this industry is. We’re still riding the wave and we’re loving it,” Geoff says. “People can follow us on social media and go to our website, but there’s nothing better than a good old fashioned visit to Havana.”

Tombolo Freycinet

Tombolo Freycinet is located at one of Tasmania’s most picturesque spots, overlooking the serene landscape of Freycinet National Park, Wineglass Bay, and the granite mountains.

“It’s not a bad backdrop to enjoy a quality coffee with some local produce,” says Owner Shannon Griffiths.

After working in the hospitality scene for many years, Shannon and her partner Andrew Merse found the unique location and set up the café four years ago.

“We saw a gap in the market for a dedicated coffee shop in the Coles Bay region and East Coast area of Tasmania. Our philosophy is to keep things simple and do those simple things well,” says Shannon.

Tombolo Freycinet’s interior reflects a rustic and relaxed ambiance with coastal-inspired furnishings and handmade tables and chairs.

Andrew’s own photography decorates the walls in addition to artwork from local artists.

“We want people to feel at home when they walk in the door,” says Shannon. “It’s also important to us that we support local talent, local produce, and source as close to home as possible to reinforce that real paddock to plate experience.”

For this reason, Tombolo Freycinet uses Hobart-based Villino Coffee.

“Villino’s Synergy blend is delivered fresh each week. It’s a smooth style of coffee with hints of sweet and fruity notes, and caramel undertones,” says Shannon.

A mobile espresso cart serving the Synergy blend sits outside the café seven days a week for takeaway orders.

To accompany the coffee a range of house-made pastries are available, including frangipani tarts, lemon curd tarts, and flourless orange cake. For lunch and dinner, Andrew shows his talent in the kitchen with a menu comprising thin-based woodfire pizzas and fresh seafood.

“There are times I serve a cup of coffee and I watch a customer take the first sip. That wow moment and the satisfaction on their face is a great feeling,” says Shannon. “It makes it all worth while when you know your customers are enjoying what you produce.”

Sprolo

Perth is welcoming a new coffee shop to its shores – and it’s got some star power behind it.

Sprolo Owners Gabriel Tan and Darren Woon, along with Barista Rie Moustakas – 2014 Australian Specialty Coffee Association (ASCA) Australian Latte Art Champion and 2014 fourth place World Latte Art Champion – make up the star-studded team.

“Sprolo can best be described as a coffee nerd’s fantasy,” says Gabriel. “We’ve taken our love of coffee, experimentation, music, and barista talent and established our dream café.”

Gabriel is no stranger to the competition scene either. A licensed Q grader, he placed third in the 2011 ASCA Barista Championship and second in the 2012 ASCA Western Australia competition. 

“Competition was a great experience but now I know what I want to focus on, and that’s roasting,” says Gabriel. “I still enjoy getting behind the coffee machine because I like the fact I can interact with my customers, but roasting is my time to ‘geek out’.”

Darren, an engineer by trade, and Gabriel, a long-time barista, have been friends for years. Gabriel says the timing was simply right to combine their love of food and coffee. “We had an initial discussion, and three months later the result was Sprolo,” Gabriel says.

The coffee bar opened in September 2014 and the team have pledged their dedication to not only serving great tasting coffee, but roasting as well.

“We wanted complete control of our business, from sourcing the green beans, to blending, roasting, brewing, customer service, and managing our own accounts,” says Gabriel. “To manage all this we set up Blacklist Coffee Roasters on the same site and roast on a 10-kilogram Turkish Has Garanti roaster.”

Customers can watch the roasting process unfold with the machine set up in the same space as the café, in addition to hessian bags and beans scattered around the place for added authenticity.

The design of the café is an ode to Darren and Gabriel’s love of music. Guitars are placed on the walls and beats blare through electric guitar speakers to create the perfect ambiance. “I used to be a professional musician in Singapore, so I thought ‘why not make it a feature of the café?’” says Gabriel.

Barista Rie uses a custom-painted La Marzocco Linea PB three-group to serve Blacklist Coffee Roaster’s signature blends. These include Étude (a French word meaning difficult musical piece), which is designed to cut through milk with chocolaty notes; and Forte, a more bold, earthy coffee with spice notes. A selection of single origin coffees are also available.

“We’ve had some standout single origins, including an Ethiopian Sidamo Chire. It’s a very natural, very clean, fruity, and super sweet coffee. A washed Ethiopian Yiracheffe Konga is also a great complex coffee that continues to blow me away,” says Gabriel.

What’s more, Gabriel and Darren have fun experimenting with their Mahlkonig EK43 grinder (which he waited three months for) and offer pour over, aeropress, clever coffee dripper, and chemex brewing methods.

Gabriel and Darren’s attention to detail extends to a custom-made concrete bench top weighing 1.4 tonnes, and a five-metre long communal table which doubles as a cupping table (made to Specialty Coffee Association of America standards) for regular cupping events.

To accompany the coffee a range of food items are available, including gourmet toasted sandwiches and bagels. The pièce de résistance is Sprolo’s traditional Singaporean breakfast, made with house-made Kaya (caramelised coconut jam) and sous vide eggs.

“We’re already getting a loyal following from customers. The local major came in for her coffee the other day too,” says Gabriel. “I love the vibe of the place.We want to make sure we go above and beyond for our customers. It’s my hope that one day people will come from far and wide to visit Sprolo.”