Black Market Café (CLOSED)

Opened in summer 2012 just behind the Sacré-Coeur, two new coffee converts, Youssef Loudnjli and Baptiste Gély, have transformed a dowdy insurance office into a hip café. They have no background as baristas but caught the coffee bug and immersed themselves for a month, trying to learn everything from the 10 crucial steps to a perfect espresso to tasting dozens of different roasts at Coutume, where they buy their beans. They then opened Black Market: with just half-a-dozen wooden tables, the front window filled with plants, and an ancient wooden counter, this laid-back locale is already attracting a colourful bohemian local crowd plus tourists staying in Montmartre’s many hotels.

The ambiance resembles downtown New York, with lots of ’70s music coming from a stack of collectable vinyls piled up by a turntable. Youssef and Baptiste went out on a limb by choosing a Dutch coffee machine, an elegant Mirage, and currently the only one Paris. Apart from the usual espresso, latte and filter coffee, they also offer a cortado, describing it as a maxi macciato or mini cappucino, made with fresh milk delivered straight from the farm. Although there is a limited choice of coffee beans – two different blends – these change roughly every ten days and come from plantations in the likes of Rwanda, Brazil and Costa Rica. For the moment, food is minimal – banana bread, cheesecake, carrot loaf – but they plan to start serving a light lunch menu soon. Going to the loo is quite an experience as you have to go out onto the street, punch in the door code of the building and walk through to the inner courtyard – a quintessential Parisian experience, but the café makes sure this communal toilet is kept spotlessly clean.