MY MOST EXPENSIVE COFFEE EVER – at least it was Italian

You’re costing me how much???

If you’re charging outrageous prices in your cafe, you have to think ‘Location, location, location.’ It’s not about the coffee, it’s about the experience – the privilege of sitting where you’re sitting.

Two memorably overpriced coffees in my travel experience were on Paris’s elegant Boulevard Saint Germain and in Sienna’s wonderful Piazza del Campo. Today’s double espresso beat them both hands down in the price department.

One more cup of coffee for the road

Oh no, we’ve miscalculated! Mevrouw T and I have at least half an hour to kill between getting the Sydney house Dutch-quality spotless for the tenants and heading to the airport to spend four months away.

How to fill those unforgiving minutes? Drink one final cup of excellent Sydney coffee…and blog about it.

REASONS TO LOVE AUSTRALIA

Nobody should accuse this blog of unbalanced journalism. I’ve just ranted about what a depressing place Australia has become, so now here I am giving it a rave review.

CAFE AMERICAIN – Amsterdam art deco

The Netherlands' oldest grand cafe - Cafe Americain, Amsterdam, built 1902.

When I first came to Amsterdam as a poor backpacker, an occasional coffee in the Cafe Americain was one of the few luxuries I could allow myself.

It helped that it was right by the outdoor terraces of the Leidseplein, where I could sometimes earn enough to pay for my coffee by busking with my yellow violin.

LEICHHARDT – Sydney’s cheesy little Italy is saved by the coffee

Dante is still deciding whether to approve of the Italian Forum...

This week I’ve been writing a brief, edgy, alternative tourist guide to Sydney. We’ve lived here for over thirty years and like most residents, we don’t often do touristy things and our lives are seldom edgy and alternative. However, a job’s a job, and it was an incentive for me to have a look around town…

I recommended that visitors start the day with a pulse-quickening coffee, and suggested that in Sydney that means a trip to the suburb of Leichhardt, the heart of Sydney’s Italian community. Café Sport in Norton Street built its reputation on serving the best coffee in Australia, but since decent coffee has now spread all over town I hadn’t been there for years.