That cold, wind swept, expanse of Market Street that seemingly only serves as a conduit for flying trash and MUNI now hosts a top notch espresso bar. Mazarine features Upland’s Klatch and San Francisco’s own Ritual. I tasted an incredibly rich, soft, and muddy Klatch Belle which performs one of the greatest tricks of the espresso world, it’s rich without being over roasted and buries all the acid in the creaminess. Their pull of one of Ritual’s single origins was just as expressive as you’d want, great focus on bright acidity.
Mazarine is fully staffed, perhaps by too many black clad wait bariste, and maintains design continuity with bleached wood and white tiled brethren across the world in that they have white marble countertops, a Marzocco Kees van der Westen “Spirit”, and wood but this place is much more urban. Mazarine features lots of finished concrete from the floor up to the counter walls. The entire bar is backed by gun metal, verging on Mazarine, blue tiling that makes you jealous that you don’t have a redecorating budget to blow at Heath (which, as it happens, did Mazarine’s espresso cups) or the Design Center. It even feels like a subway stop.
The Market Street location makes for fantastic people watching. Instead of struggling against the wind and frigid shadows on those expanses of 20 foot sidewalk out front you can just stare at everyone else as they do it in your stead. Should it be a uncommonly calm and beautiful day they even have a seating area on the sidewalk so that you can warm up and enjoy the brick clad expanse before the wind picks up again.
The caffe is saturated by wifi so it’s an ideal work location. They feature a number of nice pastries and serve wine and beer so you could always knock off early here for a drink and tell stories about the lost 7/11 Club across the street.
Update: After publishing Monica Hill from Mazarine kindly informed me that I’d mistaken the machine. It’s not actually a Marzocco, it’s a Kees van der Western “Spirit” which you should read up on here. I’m certainly enjoying the research and thank Mazarine for reaching out with the correction.