Demitasse

1149 Third Street, Santa Monica, CA 90403

Demitasse is a micro roaster with a zero waste commitment, whose coffee is also delivered to you by robots (seriously, they use Coco Delivery). This is the kind of place that justifies its price tag. They have a mild swiss water decaf called Guatemala El Diamente (order online here) which packs chocolate and sweeter fruit and nut notes. But this is also a place to go a little decadent. A Decaf Minty Cubano is similar to Phillz Coffee’s Minty Mojito.

 

Intelligentsia

Silver Lake – 3922 West Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90029
Venice – 1331 Abbot Kinney Blvd. Venice, CA 90291 
Hollywood – 6401 Hollywood Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90028
Pasedena – 55 East Colorado Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91105

Intelligentsia was founded in Chicago in 1995, where it earned a strong reputation as one of the best of the third wave roasters and coffee shops. Their second store, which was opened in Silver Lake in 2007, is still one of the hippest places in town – apart from, perhaps, their Venice Beach location. Intelligentsia was bought by Peet’s, which was bought by a German conglomerate, but they still retain their little guy image, and their coffee and coffee bars remain some of the best in the city. 

Pretty much anyone who knows anything about espresso will tell you that their Black Cat is one of the most balanced espressos you can buy. But now you can get that Black Cat Espresso in a water-processed Decaf. You can also get a similarly sweet Organic House Blend Decaf, which is great for a filter or pour over.

 

Motoring Club Coffee

West LA – 11728 W Olympic Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90064

We’re fans of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee but let’s be honest – drinking coffee next to really cool cars is probably better than watching other people drink coffee on Netflix. The Motoring Club is a 5,000 square foot members only club where you can hang out with cool cars and car enthusiasts for $95 per month, plus a $300 initiation fee. But if you just want a peak, you can check out their attached coffee shop Motoring Coffee. On a recent trip, we could have filmed our own episode of Celebrities Drinking Coffee and Sending Emails, starring Zosia Russell Mamet who we saw at a table. (Lets not forget she played Shoshana in the coffee-centric show Girls.) In any case, you can get a great decaf in the coffee shop where they serve Coffee Manufactory. I had it as an iced decaf vanilla latte and it was excellent. Extra points for being able to drink and plug in a computer on a pickup truck that’s been converted into a bar.

 

Neighborhood

Beverly Grove – 8151 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles, CA 90048
La Brea – 133 S. La Brea Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90036

Neighborhood has a couple of locations which are all very LA. Order your coffee at a small, slick coffee bar, and then sit outside in the sun watching cars go up and down the busy road. At a recent trip to their W 3rd St location, we had one of the best cups of decaf that we’ve had. They use a relatively new roaster called Seven Syllables Coffee, from Cerritos, CA – a town best known for being the largest automobile shopping mall in the world (can’t escape car references in Los Angeles.) Neighborhood used their water-processed Decaf Peru. The roaster advertises it as “For when you want to drink coffee, but don’t want to stay up til 3 am.” I’d say it’s also for when you wake up at 3 AM and still don’t like caffeine in your beans.

 

Peets

20 Locations in LA

Let’s just get one thing clear: We’ve been fans of Peet’s since way before it was cool. We are one degree away from one of the earlier owners of Peet’s, and we lived one block from the original Peet’s coffee bar in Berkeley, California. We once even got a discount on a used fully automatic espresso machine bought off Craigslist when we told the seller we were planning to use Peet’s coffee in it (he was a Peetnik and a shareholder.)  

 

Peet’s has nearly 20 locations in LA alone, though we will warn that their locations inside Capital One Bank branches have a very restricted supply of decaf. At a traditional Peets store you can find the rare shop where decaf drip is brewed all day long. Usually, they brew their decaf Major Dickason, which is the workhouse of our household decaf supply with its smokey flavor. But Peet’s has a host of other decaf options if you want to make coffee at home. Their Mocca Java is pretty spectacularly sweet, their French Roast is earthy, their Big Bang is pretty mellow, and their House Blend is unobjectionable. You can even order a decaf series subscription. 

 

So, yeah, Peet’s is now owned by a bigger corporation. But if that’s what’s allowed them to keep the decaf brewing and increase their number of decaf roasts than sobeit.

 

Phillz

13 locations in LA

Phillz started out as a convenience store in San Francisco’s Mission District and has grown to be one of the coolest chainlets around. Why is Phillz so cool? Well, for starters, they only do drip coffee. We love drip coffee and think that the permanent move of the coffee upper class to espresso has been a disservice to those of us who love the most American of coffees, drip..  Phillz carries one decaf – Luca’s Unplugged. Definitely order it dressed up in a Phillz-style coffee tuxedo like a Mint Mojito or Honey Haze.

 

Soho House 

West Hollywood – 9200 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069
West Hollywood – 8465 Holloway Dr, West Hollywood, CA 90069
DTLA – 1000 S. Santa Fe Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90021, USA
Malibu – 22716 Pacific Coast Hwy, Malibu, CA 90265

 

This isn’t a review of members clubs, so we’ll save the full description of why Soho House remains one of the coolest refuges from the hustle and bustle of many global capitals. What we will say is that Soho House’s emphasis on making members feel at home anywhere in the world pays off for coffee lovers far from London. Why is that?

 

Well, Soho House goes out of the way to have a consistent experience across all locations – from NYC to Istanbul – down to details like the same handsoap and crockery. For coffee, this means serving Grind, from Shoreditch, East London. For American readers who haven’t spent much time in London, Shoreditch is the equivalent of someone saying “Brooklyn” and trying to convey an ecosystem of hip, craft, unique food, fashion and culture. 

Grind’s espresso is really good. It’s sweet and balanced, as it should be. In the club itself, I like a decaf flat white or decaf cappuccino depending on the time of day. In their Soho Works co-working spaces, they actually offer unlimited Grind Decaf capsules, which is another case of decaf equality we should document. When someone else is buying the capsules, I like to do two or three with a splash of milk.