Intelligentsia Coffee — Silver Lake Coffeebar
The bar that taught Los Angeles to taste its coffee.
Curator’s note
Doug Zell and Emily Mange started Intelligentsia in Chicago in 1995, and Geoff Watts joined as a barista that same year, straight off a stint as a dog-walker, before becoming the green coffee buyer who built the direct-trade relationships the roaster still runs on. The Silver Lake shop opened August 17, 2007, the company's first location outside Chicago, and it still runs the Black Cat blend the founders built the company on.
Brazil-El Salvador blend, syrupy and sweet with cherry, cola, and orange notes; Intelligentsia's flagship espresso since 1995.
From Sugarbloom Bakery, the LA bakery that supplies Intelligentsia's pastry case at this location.
The coffee
Intelligentsia Coffee
Intelligentsia roasts everything in-house at its Chicago and LA roasting works on vintage 1950s Ideal/Rapid Gothot machines, releasing over 50 single origins and blends a year through Direct Trade relationships with more than 50 producer partners across 14 countries. The house espresso is Black Cat Classic, a Brazil-El Salvador blend built for sweetness and fruit acidity; the filter side rotates through current single origins like Colombia La Mina Caturra and Honduras La Tortuga.
A direct-trade roaster that helped define the category, still running seasonal lots and an espresso program that has not gotten sloppy.
Bestor Architecture drew this one in 2007 as a sunken open-counter stage, which is exactly what it still is — the baristas work in the round and the room knows it is being watched. The patio on Sunset is one of the better places in the city to sit and do the watching back.
- Black Cat Classic Espresso
- Light
- Semi-washed (Brazil); washed (El Salvador)
- Brazil: Direct Trade partner since 2006; El Salvador: smallholder producers, Direct Trade partner since 2003
cherry · cola · orange
- Colombia La Mina Caturra
- Light
- Caturra
- Washed, raised bed dried
- La Mina, producer Franco José Héctor López
pomegranate · mandarin orange · nectarine
- Honduras La Tortuga
- Medium
- Catuaí
- Washed, raised bed dried
- Producers Marysabel Caballero and Moises Herrera
apple · baked citrus · toffee
- Burundi Yandaro
- Medium
- Red Bourbon
- Washed, raised bed dried
- Greenco (smallholder collective)
dried apricot · bright clementine · sweet persimmon
- El Gato Blend
- Medium
- Semi-washed (Brazil); washed (El Salvador)
- Brazil: Direct Trade partner since 2006; El Salvador: smallholder producers
dark chocolate · baked apple · plum
- Espresso · Pour-over · Batch drip · Cold brew
- Whole · Oat (Oatly) · Almond · Soy
- Single-origin available · Swiss Water decaf
The room
Bestor Architecture built this as Intelligentsia's first shop outside Chicago in 2007, and the brief was to fit into Silver Lake's already-established strip without losing the point of the place: watching someone make your coffee. The room runs on a Carrara marble island where the espresso bar sits dead center, floored and fronted in geometric blue-and-white Granada tile. It reads as a coffeehouse built for people who care about coffee, not a cafe built to look like one.
Guest wifi · restrooms · food menu · patio / outdoor seating · pet friendly · kid-friendly · wheelchair accessible · reusable-cup discount
The vibe
Photos
People
Been to Intelligentsia Coffee — Silver Lake Coffeebar?
Leave a note for the next person — what to order, where to sit.