645 Avenue Du President-Kennedy
Montreal, QC H3A, Canada
www.caffeartjava.com
When I went to Canada in November, I was excited to check out Caffe Art Java, a cafe that many people on the internet claimed to be the place to get best coffee in Montreal. Fortunately, Caffe Art Java has one cafe by Rue University on the edge of McGill University, which was very close to where I stayed.
The cafe uses coffee beans roasted by Gimme Coffee in Ithaca, New York. For espresso, they use Leftist blend (which you can buy online from Gimme website as well). The blend is medium dark, but leaning more to the dark side. The barista was skillful and did great job for both the shots and the latte foam. The cafe also serves hot food. I ordered croissant with ham and cheese, which was heated panini style and tasted quite good.
The decoration of the cafe is modern, sleek, and hip. It has red couches, brown chairs, and dark tables. It has light background music (French music when I was there). .It has strong wifi with both 2.4 and 5 GHz options. When I arrived there around noon on Sunday, the cafe was not crowded, but there were more and more people coming throughout the early afternoon. There was plenty of seating however. Most of the customers when I was there were students with laptops working on their school work, but there were quite a lot of young professionals visiting the cafe as well. The staff and the barista were friendly, and seemed to know lots of their frequent customers well.
I may have to explore Montreal more (preferably not in winter!) before judging whether Caffe Art Java is in fact the best in town. But overall, it is indeed a great cafe to get coffee and light meal in downtown Montreal.
Cafe Hound 