Boston Brewing Up Coffee Houses Inspired by the European Cafe Tradition

Bernie Flynn sat in his cluttered Newbury Street office, across the Charles River in Boston’s Back Bay, combing his thick mustache.

“A good cafe,” said Flynn, owner of Trident Booksellers and Cafe, “is a place where you can foment revolution, have a romance or just spend time by yourself without feeling out of place. What goes on there is the people who are sitting there.”

In true Spanish style, Josefina Perez Yanguas is dressed entirely in black. Her coffee-brown eyes regard a visitor warmly. Yanguas’ apartment on Bow Street in Harvard Square lies directly above Cafe Pamplona, which she opened in 1959 and named for her native town, the Pamplona of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises.”

She has long supervised the making of espresso, cappuccino, gazpacho and flan for customers’ enjoyment, but to the question of what makes a good cafe, Yanguas answers instantly: “People.”

An Endangered Species?

In Cambridge and Boston, cafe society travels within a limited territory, confined with few exceptions to Harvard Square and Newbury Street. Against the standard set by Paris, where one cannot trip without falling into a cafe, those here perhaps deserve protections as endangered species. The existing spots reflect the often-noted European spirit that pervades the two cities.

“Americans are not used to ‘waste time,’ ” notes Pamplona’s Yanguas, using her fingers to make airy quotation marks around the offending phrase. “But you don’t waste time in a cafe . . . you talk.”

And talk and talk. Sometimes a single order of espresso can last a practiced cafe society habitue an entire evening. In a good cafe, no one really minds.

Beginning about April, Boston cafes bring out tables and chairs from their winter-long hibernation. A prized spot for coffee sipping and people watching throughout the warmer months is at Cafe Pamplona’s compact patio just off the Bow Street sidewalk.

Inside the cellar-based cafe, which seems to have been laid out on a postage stamp, conversation is often punctuated with a loud whoosh-cough-cough from the steamed milk nozzle on a Milanese-made espresso maker. Much gentler is the sound of a waiter tapping out coffee grounds into a copper-lined pail hung behind the counter.

No Pastels Here

To Pamplona waiter Michael Moore, what makes a good cafe is “a lack of pastels.” On that point, this cafe earns a perfect score. The theme is black and white--on the linoleum floor tiles, on the white shirts, black ties and black pants the waiters wear, and, of course, the black and white of coffee and cups.

At Algiers Coffeehouse, another basement-level cafe in Harvard Square’s Brattle Theater building, 40 Brattle St., the Arabic coffee must be sipped slowly.

The coffee, which is served in small tin pots known as rakweh , is hot, naturally, but more than ordinary care is necessary to prevent swallowing a cupful of grounds. Arabic coffee is traditionally brewed to a muddy consistency. One sips by straining the coffee through pursed lips. At Algiers, the rakweh pots are sweetened with hab-el-hale spice, an unusual flavoring vaguely reminiscent of anise.

An exotic atmosphere reigns at Algiers, and an exciting way to make an entrance there is through the wrought-iron doors at an alley between the Brattle Theater and the Cambridge Center for Adult Education.

Sipping Solo

For loners in cafe society, Algiers is especially inviting. It is the only cafe here with a counter and stools. Otherwise, the room is full of nooks and crannies, lending a degree of intrigue to the goings-on.

“An authentic coffeehouse is an Arab coffeehouse,” Algiers owner Emil Durzi boasts. He notes that even the word coffee has Arab roots.

In Boston, the newest stop on the cafe society trail is a reverent bow to the world’s cafe capital. Cafe de Paris, at 19 Arlington St. beside the Arlington Street Church and overlooking the Public Garden, has an authentic French accent. The father-and-son proprietors, Gilbert and Oliver Bony, are native Parisians who moved to Boston 12 years ago.

Working with French designers and using French-made materials, the Bonys have created an atmosphere as much Paris as freshly baked baguettes. Indeed, the Bonys come from a long line of French bakers.

Son Oliver, who studied the baking trade in Paris, prepares the croissants and tartes that complement coffees and cappuccinos. A special kind of approval has greeted the Paris, which opened in mid-December last year.

“Very often I can hear people speaking French,” says Gilbert Bony. “Also, they start now to come to buy their bread for the evening. They leave with baguettes under their arms.”

Parisian Atmosphere

Cafe de Paris’ front window faces the Public Garden and is framed with translucent curtains. Mirrors line the walls, and booths are tastefully upholstered. On the sidewalk two enormous brass lamps with opaque white globes light the scene at dusk, just as the originals do at Cafe Lutece on Boulevard Raspail.

Unfortunately, no chairs and tables will ever join those lamps; city regulations forbid them on the narrow Arlington Street sidewalk.

Cafe Florian, at 85 Newbury St., keeps its sidewalk tables and chairs ready for whenever the weather is right. Owner Barbara Goldberg says proudly that they even appeared during an unusual and brief warm spell in February. On late summer afternoons, Florian tables are cooled by an office building shadow from across the street.

Florian lies at the lower end of Newbury Street in a subterranean niche almost literally walled in by art galleries. The space is long and narrow, with exposed brick and several antique mirrors hung among watercolors and prints.

The small black marble table tops fill up quickly with such staples as cheese, pate, a fruit platter and half a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon.

Opened 30 years ago by a Hungarian emigre and with a menu that still lists homemade goulash, Cafe Florian takes food seriously. There is a dinner course, including French omelets, and a pastry cart that recently starred a brandy-soaked brioche with peach custard stuffing.

For the Less Continental

Not all Boston cafes draw quite so heavily on Old World charm as Cafe Florian. The New Age representative is the Trident at 338 Newbury St. Background music runs from Windham Hill to Indian ragas. Incense burns behind the cash register.

Ever since he opened the Trident in October, 1984, owner Bernie Flynn has sought to attract to his 15 tables what he can only call, with a smile, “a scene.”

On Sunday afternoons from fall to spring the Trident hosts poetry and fiction readings sponsored by the Writers League of Boston, but otherwise the cafe is quiet, even contemplative. Games of chess, backgammon and Japanese “go” last for hours.

The Trident’s espresso is thick and strong and best enjoyed with a small slice of lemon rind. Rich soups, hot open-faced sandwiches covered with sprouts and a variety of cakes make up the short menu. A choice seat is in the street-side bay window.

Trident habitues include not only writers but also students from the nearby Berklee College of Music.

“Some people are here seven days a week,” Flynn said. “You have to be committed to your cafe. Any old cafe won’t do because part of cafe life is to feel at home, feel comfortable.”

In Boston and Cambridge cafe society, that holds not only for the locals, but also for travelers in search of an interesting respite from the traditional sites.

Europe’s neighborhood cafe tradition survives in Boston’s North End, where Italian is still commonly spoken. In a single block on Hanover Street--not far from the Old North Church--are four cafes--Vittoria, Pompeii, Paradiso and Caffe dello Sport, which look as if they have been lifted from Italy.

The four spots, which stay open past midnight, attract their share of tourists out for an after-dinner coffee. In early morning, however, the scene is pure ethnic.

At Caffe dello Sport, 307 Hanover St., pennants from Italian soccer teams decorate the windows and walls. Elderly men sit together over espresso, chomping on cigars and gesturing wildly.

At 10 o’clock on a weekday morning, Hanover Street is quiet. Women dressed in black, their scarfs tied tightly around their heads, shuffle by. A handsome young Italian man in a fashionable leather jacket bounds in the door, orders at the counter, rushes back out, then returns again, carrying under his arm the morning’s Oggi, an Italian-language newspaper published in New York. His espresso is waiting, still steaming.

At nearby Cafe Paradiso, 255 Hanover St., owner Antonio de Stefano hails a visitor with “buon giorno. “ His customers are several old friends who have taken places near the door. Asked what the Paradiso’s hours are, De Stefano grins.

“Any time you want a coffee, come down here,” he says. “The door has got no key.”

After a suitable pause, he adds, “You gotta pay, first thing.” But De Stefano is laughing. So are his friends. They look like good company to enjoy a special part of Boston cafe society.