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Open only since September, Kafe Bohem (KB) totally deserves its own topic here on dr.com. I begin with this just because there already is a topic for the associated restaurant, Bistro Bohem, which is under the same ownership and shares a wall. Coffee shops are culturally rich for many reasons and this is just one part of their attraction. Most obvious is the coffee/product. We discuss that alot here on the site. Sometimes other beverages or foods. The venue itself. The historical or regional background of the owners or guiding philosophy, including (but definitely not limited to) the various policies in place guiding everything from laptop usage to whether a small glass of water is served with an espresso. And, as important as anything else, the people who frequent the shop. Why start out a topic with the stuff above? Because just when I find myself slipping down the slope of believing we may be approaching coffee shop saturation in DC soon, I come across something that makes me realize the silliness of that notion. We're not even close. HEADLINE A wonderful place to sip, munch, work or talk, all packaged in a way fundamentally different from the many other great coffee shop spots in Washington, DC. VENUE Kafe Bohem is located in Ledroit Park right where Florida, 6th and T (all NW) converge. The coffee preparation area and checkout are on the left at the entrance and are relatively small relative to the generous amount of square footage devoted to smaller and larger tables. The amount of space (and thus ease of getting a place to sit, talk or work) rivals anything in the city. And, when you also add the 40 or so seats in the restaurant (also available to cafe patrons during the day), this is about as spacious as it gets with maybe only Coffy Kafe in Columbia Heights close on a pure square footage basis. The cafe has a a darker (but not dark) feel befitting its eastern European orientation. Dark woods, exposed brick, beautifully darker stained wood floors. Outlets have been thoughtfully located to allow connection from most any cafe table. Free encryptied wifi. While the password is printed on the bottom of any receipt, seems now that they may be using an unchanging phone number 🙂 While there's a definite seriousness to the coffee and baking (more on that to follow), there's a professional and capable casualness to the service and general vibe. Music nicely completes the feeling of tranquil third-placedness without at all being too loud or interfering with conversation in any way. COFFEE KB's coffee program is exclusively based on Julius Meinl coffees. Julius Meinl is a 150-year-old coffee purveyor from central Europe, headquartered in Vienna. Their US presence is new and limited with three Julius Meinl shops in Chicago and, as far as I know, just Kafe Bohem representing them here. The coffees are of high quality and sourced from the familiar regions in Africa and Latin America. As notable, roasting for the US market is done in Chicago so no issues with freshness. Consistent with German/Austrian thinking on coffee, coffee drinks are made with medium roasted and not dark beans. The latter are used for espresso. I had a "Melange Viennese" which, at KB, is identical to a wet cappuccino. Different from how some define the drink in Europe, where it can also be called a Wiener Melange and made with coffee in addition to the espresso and milk or foam. More on that for coffee geeks here. My capp was very nicely made with perfect balance of milk to espresso and served very warm to barely hot (versus scalding). A pour-over bar is planned and well underway and will feature single origin coffees. I was told this should reach fruition by the end of the year. By the looks of things, they seem to have a good variety of quality looseleaf teas on offer as well. PASTRIES Simply stated, the pastries here are better than those I've had or seen at any other coffee shop in the area. I didn't ask about the baker or learn more about what they're doing but, based on a wonderfully fresh, flaky and moist apple streudel and a surprisingly generous (maybe 1.75 inches thick) slice of apple cake which also managed to be very light, someone here knows what they're doing. BOTTOM LINE Kafe Bohem is a wonderful addition to the DC coffee/cafe scene, proving there's still much that can be innovated and enriched when it comes to places to get a cup to run, hang or something else. I've never tried the restaurant but, based on this visit to the cafe, will soon. If you like good coffee and/or are looking for a good place to connect with someone or get some work done, you can't do too much better than coming to Ledroit Park for KB. -
Eastern European cooking seemed a natural follow-up to a film by Czech avant-garde animator Jan Svankmajer at the National Gallery last month, so we boarded a 70 bus to the fairly new Bistro Bohem. The small and inviting restaurant is located a block away from the gloriously revived Howard Theater and is an encouraging addition to Le Droit Park, which is looking particularly good these days, not counting the incongruously monolithic Howard University Hospital looming over its shoulders. (In pre-gentrification days, when these streets could turn unexpectedly mean, the proximity of the hospital was a good thing for stalwart neighborhood residents who had just been bludgeoned.) We had read enthusiastic things about Bistro Bohem in the newspaper and had heard similar praise from friends, so what unfolded was a bit of a disappointment. I won't blame it on Svankmajer. Although food plays more than a bit part in his movies, it is a source of mayhem, as it was in what we had just seen -- "Little Otik" -- where babies being fished out of briny water are delectably pink and you can see why customers are lined up for them. Savory soups and stews are brought to the table throughout the dark proceedings, and they appear fortifying, though unfortunately not enough to sate the enormous appetite of a rapidly flourishing tree-stump baby who has been brought to life by a hopelessly barren couple. Finally confined to the basement of the disconcerted parents' apartment house after devouring the mailman and a social worker, the temptation of a courtyard patch of cabbages is Otik's downfall, an ending out of the folktale on which this is based, a chronicle of an insatiable appetite running roughshod over the countryside. If I lived in its neck of the woods, I would visit Bistro Bohem often for its drinks and beers, but I would tend to stay away from the food unless I was famished. Sharing appetizers and small and large plates, we felt a bit like Otik, devouring our food but never finding anything that was truly satisfying. Garlic soup was mostly all salt, though the interplay of garlic and toasted bread revealed an intriguing affinity in flavor. Flecky in texture, melted Gruyere provided a reminder that this was a poor man's version of French onion soup. Pierogi with a potato and cheese filling were light and supple, steering things in a happier direction, except that there was some undercooked flour in the bechamel-based sauce on which they rested. Home-made potato chips were ridiculously bad, dripping in oil, some half crisp, others totally soggy, a few with raw centers. And a potato pancake was gummy, covered in a dark gloppy sauce, along with small orange knots of hard chicken. The menu advises that the kitchen is small. Clearly it was wrestling with the food the night we visited. Maybe it was just our dumb luck that the wrong person was cooking. Why go to Prague for food, when you can go to Paris? Bistro Bohem raised but did not answer that question for us. -
I could well have missed a previous thread for this place. If so, my apologies. We stopped by the Royal this past Friday for drinks and some food before a show at the 930 Club. A few quick thoughts on the place. It's a smaller, neighborhood spot. I was only in the downstairs, which was all self seating, but there's an upstairs as well. Not sure how large it is. In the downstairs I think they had around 16 seats (eight or so at a larger communal high table and around eight at regular height tables) as well as somewhere around ten seats at a curved bar. The cocktails are really good. Horus Alvarez is a fantastic bartender, and he's running the show here as well as at Vinoteca. The cocktails my wife and I had were all fantastic. They're also making their own vermouth, which I was able to sample, but at this point they're not using it in any of the cocktails on their menu. Service at the bar, where we were seated, was also fantastic and attentive the whole time. Small, but solid wine and beer list. The food was good as well, although there were a couple of misses. Almost the entire menu is small plates (of course). The two exceptions, which we didn't try, were a burger, and a steak with roasted potatoes. The stuffed arepa was fantastic, with a great braised pork filling. I could eat many of these. The grilled avocado (with quinoa and lentils) was also fantastic, and the grilled quid was very good. The plantains themselves didn't have a ton of flavor, but the sweet crema accompanying them was wonderful. The corn and tomato salad with chickpeas was the one miss, with very sub-par tomatoes. Probably a miss-order on our part. Anyhow, we were very pleased with our visit. It's a good neighborhood spot, and a good low-key option for drinks and food before shows at the Howard Theater or the 930 Club. They are also open early for coffee service and breakfast, which is something I'd appreciate if I lived in the neighborhood.-
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