Scores of new eateries have opened over the last couple of years on the east side of the Mile End, and many of them are oriented towards the lunch crowd. That crowd originates in the small but dense industrial district that stretches between St-Laurent and St-Denis, above Maguire. Whereas most of these new establishments are along St-Laurent, Café Falco is within the garment district itself, at the base of a 12-story, Borg cube-like industrial building on de Gaspé.
True to the first half of its name, Café Falco is foremost a coffeehouse. But it is no ordinary coffeehouse; it uses the eccentric (read: fad du jour) siphon process to brew the brown waters. It also has a fairly unusual setup. There are just a couple of two- or three-person tables in this bright, amply fenestrated and artfully decorated space; most patrons have to enjoy (or contend with) sitting on high stools at a large communal table, with carefully selected art and design books piled in the centre.
The siphon coffee-making equipment is fascinating to look at—like something out of a 19th-century chemistry lab. It’s like a huge hourglass: two bulbous glass vessels, one on top of the other, connected via a narrow glass tube. The water is poured into the lower glass vessel and the coffee grounds are put into the one on top.
Initially, the siphon coffee process is functionally similar to a stovetop coffeemaker. You heat the lower vessel (with something like a Bunsen burner), and the resulting steam pushes the remaining water up to the top vessel, where it encounters the coffee grounds. When the bottom vessel is empty, or nearly so, the heat is turned off. As the lower vessel cools down, the pressure inside it drops, creating a vacuum. It sucks the coffee in the upper vessel down through a filter in the interconnecting glass tube, which captures the grounds. So, the water ends up where it started, in the lower vessel, albeit now infused with that brown magic.
Is it worth all the fuss? I’m not sure. The resulting brew is undeniably velvety smooth, certainly much better than your typical drip coffee. It doesn’t hurt that Falco uses beans from award winning Wisconsin-based roaster Kickapoo. Personally, however, I think I might’ve preferred that those excellent beans be extracted into an espresso.
Coffee isn’t the only thing on offer at Falco. There are other beverages, caffeinated and otherwise, plus various light snacks and complete weekday lunches and Saturday brunches, both of a Japanese nature.
The miso was the only element of our meal that was served hot. It was light beige and quite cloudy, thicker and more substantial than the rather broth-like miso afterthoughts you might encounter at some nominally Japanese places. Taste-wise, it was well balanced: slightly sour, not too salty and rich in umami, as miso should be.
The cool cucumber salad made for a nice, refreshing contrast. It was flavoured with a light, ginger-accented rice vinegar dressing and had a pleasant crunch to it.
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