Café Noir Bar & Lounge — Restaurant in Medellín

Very pretentious and (very) overpriced place, although the service was excellent.

1 basic croissant (see pic) + 1 cup of coffee was $77.000 pesos ($18.65 USD), plus tip, which the restaurant sneakily includes without your permission.

I paid the 15% propina — even though 10% is customary here, and voluntary (they’re supposed to ask you if you’d like to include it) — but only because my server was very kind. It’s not her fault the place is operated this way; she’s just doing her job. (I do not want a refund, and did not ask for one.) But it's very sketchy to add a tip without asking, and even more so to add an inflated 15%.

EDIT: 1-star because the restaurant's response clarifies that the 15% tip is added to shift the burden of paying its employees' wages, from the Employer (restaurant) to the customer... It would be very easy for the owner to support a living wage for its employees, which I fully support; simply reduce the price/profit margin on the food by 15% and pay that money directly to your employees (plus the tips they earn).

Noir lost my business (and earned this review). With so many luxury local cafes/lounges here, it's worth...

Arguably the best overall cafe I’d been to in Medellin. Most people will know and flock to Permagino, and rightfully so. However, Cafe Noir is for those truly in the know.

They grow and harvest the beans in their own farm. They have their own extraction process which brings out certain flavor.

You know they are serious when they give you 4 choice of sugar to choose from including Columbian traditional panela (their version of brown sugar) and Strevia!

I ordered the ice latte. If you want something more fancy you can order a 24k version. They use the same bean but the 24k will look more fancy and nice for the gram.

Even the ice is made from coffee, a nuance that’ll not be lost on on true connoisseurs. The note of their house blend is toward the chocolate side. While I lean toward acidic, this does give a nice alternative taste. It can definitely match its more famous neighbor.

The food is also not bad. I ordered a deviled egg. Nice taste. The staff is knowledgeable and gave a nice explanation in their coffee. Highly highly...

UPDATE: I reached out to them as I was asked to, and no one returned my email or whatsapp messages. Which says ALOT!

Can’t recommend. They brought a vegetarian person in our party meat twice and instead of apologizing they yelled at us for it. Our first waiter didn’t listen to the order we placed, nor did he hear when we said a person in our party was vegetarian. Instead we were penalized for it. When we tried to explain this to the waiter that brought the food, the waiter wouldn’t let us speak, instead he lead with the fact that we were late for our reservation (which had absolutely nothing to do with our food orders), of which I had notified them by text message, and they did respond saying it was not a problem. This waiter had the nerve to say that we didn’t. So apparently if you’re late you get served the wrong thing? It made no sense. We asked to speak to a manager and the waiter said no one could speak to us, just him. Clearly not the truth. They’re trying to be upscale but the service is...