Macchiato Caffé or simply Macchiato, is located on the corner of Broughton St and Broad St (entrance) was the first official stop on my second coffee excursion in Victoria BC. I actually passed by Macchiato several times during my first trip to Victoria. I did not however go in there for a couple of reasons.
On first occasion I had just had lunch at lunch at Konpira and being pretty stuffed, I wasn’t in the mood for coffee. Konpira, by the way, which is only half a block away, is my favorite Japanese restaurant in Victoria. They are famous for their limited hand-made Udon noodles and extremely fresh sushi. The Japanese master who owns the restaurant makes only about 30 or 40 servings of the hand-made Udon noodles and so if you don’t get there early, you are out of luck. But I digress… back to coffee.
On a couple other occasions I passed by the place, they were already closed for the day… pretty early actually. So I decided that I would have to save the pleasure of checking out their espresso for my next visit to Victoria. And I am glad I did because when I wrote my series of posts on my first visit, I couple of folks suggested that I should try the place since they had great coffee.
On stepping into the place, the first thing I noticed was the modern look and feel to the interior design with plenty of metal and lighting. This was a modern Italian style of décor but somewhat reminding me of places like the Victrola Coffee on Pine St in Capital Hill or the Top Pot Doughnuts on 5th Avenue, downtown Seattle. Now I know some love that kind of décor, but I tend to like places like the original Top Pot Doughnuts on Summit Ave in Capital Hill or the original Fuel Coffee on 19th also on Capital Hill.
The other thing I noticed was that everyone seemed to know everyone else… and to some extent that seems like a very Victoria BC trait. I actually loved the vibe and sense of community the place had. The baristas (including the owner who actually pulled the shots) were nice and friendly. There was a bit of a miss communication issue with one of baristas but that was more of a Seattle coffee terminology vs. Victorian (Canadian) coffee terminology… but everything worked out great.
The coffee was actually pretty good. They served my favorite Caffé Umbria espresso blend, the ‘Gusto Crema’ blend, a great medium roast blend. The only downside was that they didn’t have whole milk, but I guess I could live with that.
I would say that I certainly would go back again for coffee. And I would certainly try out some of the sandwiches for which I guess they are pretty well known for… that is if I don’t go to Konpira first for udon noodles.