Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
Issue link: http://freshcup.epubxp.com/i/139019
ARTIFACT COFFEE BALTIMORE SPIKE GJERDE, OWNER S CAFÉ S ROAD S CROS BY DAN LEIF photos by SKYE MCNEILL pike Gjerde is the rare chef who gives coffee service the same focus as the rest of the cuisine. In fact, at his locavore-beloved restaurant Woodberry Kitchen, two baristas man a coffee-prep area each dinner shift, crafting drinks from Counter Culture Coffee roasts. Last August, Gjerde elevated his coffee cred even further when he opened Artifact, a café just steps away from Woodberry in a complex of converted mill buildings near Baltimore's Hampden neighborhood. Pour-over, espresso and skilled baristas sit at the center of the project, but Gjerde and his staff also offer inspired breakfast, lunch and dinner plates alongside baked goods made at Woodberry. SPIKE GJERDE Q: What drove you to expand on what you were doing with coffee at Woodberry and open an actual café? A: We actually opened a beta version of Artifact before we even opened Woodberry [in 2007]. We were so into coffee at that moment trying to understand it, and we had a side room at Woodberry that we could create a little café in while the restaurant was being built out. We took what we learned from running this little café and translated it to the restaurant. I started to really believe and still do that we needed to find another way, many other ways, to bring local agriculture into people's lives. Restaurants are a great way to experience that food and have that kind of interaction, but a coffee shop is another great way to eat and drink and enjoy yourself. Q: Restaurants, even many high-quality ones, are notorious for poor coffee. Why did you buck that trend? A: I'd be lying if I didn't admit to perpetrating that same thing with coffee for years in restaurants. We had an espresso machine, we ground our own coffee beans, but from there it all just fell apart. Nobody knew what they were doing. We may have adjusted our grind on an annual basis. We had decided to open Woodberry, and before we opened I was on a trip out in San Francisco and I had my first great espresso and macchiato—at Blue Bottle at the Ferry Building when they did the farmers market and Blue Bottle had a little kiosk outside. I took this thing over and showed my wife. I was like, "This is amazing." We came back resolved to get into coffee a little bit. We bought a Synesso kind of out of the blue and put it in my friend's break room. continued on page 26 24 Fresh Cup Magazine freshcup.com