During a recent trip to Bordeaux, my friend Maxine and I were really surprised by the amount of excellent specialty coffee that we found all over this lovely city. Though the weather was somewhat wet on our first day, by the next day, the skies had cleared and we could enjoy lovely stroll around Bordeaux’s medieval center and its lush botanical garden.
One of the places that had been recommended to us by various locals was L’Alchimiste Coffee’s roastery in the alternative Darwin complex on the other side of the river Garonne. This creative hub that is part of the rejuvenation of a former army barracks offers a great deal of interesting shopping and food, a popular indoor skate park, vintage stores and houses the L’Alchemiste Coffee roastery. As you approach the space, you can already smell the lovely notes of caramelized coffee coming from its chimneys.
The café and roastery are located inside a large space that also includes a Veja boutique and an apparell retailer. The high ceilings and open interior lend this coffee shop a really majestic feel. As you walk in, you are greeted by a long bar on the right, a small retail shop on the left and a mezzanine seating area with a large terrace on the left. At the back, you’ll find the coffee roastery where a small team of talented people works with a Loring roaster to bring out the best and tastiest flavours of each coffee.
I was lucky to meet Yohan Caunegre who is the General Manager of L’Alchimiste Coffee and who then gave me a tour of the facilities. Yohan has been with L’Alchimiste for a couple of years and works closely with its original founder Arthur Audibert and his wife Virginie Maison who is in charge of the cultural program. During my visit, the café hosted an exhibition of famous French actors due to L’Alchimiste Coffee’s support of the local independent film festival in Bordeaux.
The lovely barista on duty prepared a delicious flat white for me while Maxine drank a kombucha and leafed through some of the magazines on hand. I really loved the energy of the space. It reminded me somehow of the NDSM area in Amsterdam, which is a former shipyard that was first a more underground creative hub but is slowly being gobbled up by gentrification. Sadly, that’s often the fate of places like this.
Yet, Darwin still retains a somewhat alternative and counter culture spirit. Outside, you can find old army trucks parked next to workshops where people make handmade jewellery or woodwork. Opposite, we found an excellent bakery and chocolatier that our waistline was not so enthousiastic about.
L’Alchimiste Coffee also runs a coffee shop in downtown Bordeaux but due to time constraints, I didn’t get a chance to swing by there. Most recently, the team was joined by new head roaster Jake Hansen who left his former home in Virginia to start a new life with in Bordeaux with his wife and dogs. Yohan confirmed that while L’Alchimiste is a champion of specialty coffee in this part of France, it’s happy to find new customers further afield. Let’s see if we can get them featured in one of our Coffeevine boxes soon.
