Poulaillon (Sauvage)
9 Rue de la Chouette, 21000 Dijon, France
Click right to take a look around…
My assessment detoured from good to exhilarated as my heart espied turn-of-the-century inspirations. Allow me to explain. The island in the center holds a Mahlkönig grinder, a tray of three ground coffees (Indonesian, Peruvian, Ethiopian) for experiencing fragrance, bins of Guatemala, empty bags of roasted Peruvian, rustic wooden drawers, and an extra stash of the latest issue of POMPON. It’s like someone with a desire to create a study couldn’t help but insert a coffee didactic among his/her space of retreat. Then it hit me, it’s a French rendition of an early-20th-century living room. Specifically, my mind raced to the living room of Louis Comfort Tiffany at Laurelton Hall (see image below). Only the chosen made it into these chambers. I, we, the German kids next to me, and the awkward date happening to my left, had been chosen. At the foot of the Église de Notre Dame’s chevet, this two-roomed cafe is a testament to offering space meant to be filled. Against the Gerry Keane wallpaper of mustardy tropics, the geometry of mirrors, the frames framing nothing, and the retro clock of gears suspended within layered empty frames only do more to suggest that the role of the venturer is indispensable. The Japanese-style cold drip siphon on that middle island is to be admired (and it sure was by many including myself) and the monochrome watercolor pet portraits are your chance to move away from coffee and get personal. If the latter is your speed, there is a runway. In this moment, on a bench of dense plush of hale navy or in a cross-stitched tub chair, you can comfortably decide. Are you in it for a conversation about Perry the toy poodle (not the dog’s real name) or about why they chose to brew on the siphon with Badoit? Either way, you’re enveloped, but not by walls stamped with chestnut leaves that catch natural light like a forest clearing as in the case of Tiffany’s living room at Laurelton Hall. Rather, you’re enveloped by environs that are always golden despite the day, perhaps a keenly French way to ensure that the unbidden decide to stay.
Photo Credit: The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, Orlando, Florida. I do not own this photo.
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Drink: La Chemex
The menu lists a double Chemex version as well with extra details about the coffee being smooth and aromatic when brewed in this manner (“café doux et très aromatique”). Alright, I see you Colombian and raise you...oof, already lost the poker game. The bag said caramel and cherry, and what does this drink give? Caramel and cherry. You might not immediately realize what you’re tasting because it breaks with the conventions of caramel apples and chocolate cherries. You don’t expect a reverse UNO card here: chocolate apples or caramel cherries. But here we are. It came out after about fifteen minutes and is completely worth the wait. It’s a beautiful coffee that they brewed well, the result no doubt of an intimate relationship with the coffee they themselves roasted.
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Price: La Chemex=4.5€
Hours*: Tuesday–Friday {9:02–18:33}; Saturday {9:02–19}; Sunday {10–14}; Monday {CLOSED}
*The days on the hours sign outside is in Italian for some reason.