Critics’ choice: The hot trends in coffee bars

Parlor Coffee Brooklyn

A coffee shop has to meet one of two prerequisites to be a true hot spot, said Eater.com. Some places play aggregator: They know when the best beans are arriving at the best roasters throughout the country and “furiously rotate” the roasts they offer to brew for their discerning clienteles. But the very hottest coffee purveyor in the land, according to our reader metrics, specializes in the more minimalist option: Dillon Edwards, who launched Brooklyn’s Parlor Coffee in late 2012, does his own small-batch roasting, using beans from a top importer, plus the know-how he acquired while working for java-nut standard-bearers Stumptown Coffee Roasters and Blue Bottle Coffee. Edwards serves espresso only, and his growing renown has no doubt been boosted by the fact that Parlor is the smallest coffee bar in New York’s five boroughs—a “pocket-square-size” space tucked in the back of a retro-style men’s barbershop that caters to Brooklyn hipsters. “It’s in Williamsburg, of course.” 82-84 Havemeyer St., (718) 218-9100

Blacksmith Houston

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Serious coffee roasters are learning that food has a place even in temples to the perfect brew. At this welcome addition to the thriving culinary scene in Houston’s Montrose neighborhood, “a short but smart food menu” shows pretenders how the trick should be done, said Katharine Shilcutt in HoustonPress.com. David Buehrer, whose Greenway Coffee has long been a revered specialty roaster, called upon a chef who’d worked at New York’s Per Se and Babbo when he began drawing up plans for his big new space. Erin Smith’s nine-item menu includes simple Texas toast, for those who want nothing more flavorful than marmalade competing with the flavors of their coffee. But Smith also makes a Vietnamese steak-and-egg sandwich that’s served with chicken liver pâté and a garlic mayo, and her passion is the in-house yogurt. Note too the pickled green tomatoes on the BLT, the homemade mostarda on the Cuban sandwich, and the local milk in your latte or cortado. A local dairy blends the milk of three different breeds to get the rich flavor Buehrer insists on. 1018 Westheimer Rd., (832) 360-7470

Gaslight Coffee Roasters Chicago

You have to tip your hat to a place that can satisfy the aficionados while being welcoming to non-hipsters, said Liz Clayton in SeriousEats.com. This large and “warmly appointed” new café opened last summer on a “neither-too-hipster-nor-too-yuppie” stretch of Milwaukee Avenue in Logan Square and immediately proved that bad service and worse food aren’t necessary ancillaries of boutique-brewed coffee. So go ahead and enjoy a pour-over or siphon of one of their single-origin offerings, like Guatemala La Bolsa. But don’t neglect the sampler of house-made pickled vegetables, the soft-boiled duck egg served at breakfast, or the locally sourced charcuterie, said Mike Sula in ChicagoReader.com. This is the rare place where, when you order a fermented elk sausage studded with mead-soaked blueberries, you won’t be uncomfortable when the “intoxicating funk” scents the whole room. Better yet, “nobody blinks” if the way you like coffee involves sugar and cream. 2835 N. Milwaukee Ave., gaslightcoffeeroasters.com