Progress LIFE STYLE COFFEE（本店） — Restaurant in Hiroshima

After exhaustive research this seems to be one of only two independent coffee shops in the centre of Hiroshima offering espresso based coffee made with a proper espresso machine (not one of those bean to cup abominations beloved of the majority of chains here). They have a La Marzocco.

As I decided to boycott the other place (having been turned away previously for the apparent affrontery of having my daughter with me) this is basically all that's left. They're obviously more focused on milk heavy coffees, and latte art seems to be their thing. As I can't really get on with Japan's UHT style milk I avoided that and went for the espresso. I suspect this isn't something they're really optimising for in their setup but it was at least better than what you'd get out of a BTC machine.

Slightly frustrated they don't open until 1pm, to me coffee is a morning thing, but it seems this place is a cafe/bar and people in Japan do seem to be happy to drink coffee later...

Was missing my daily dose of cappucino and stimbled upon this little cafe. Loved the cosy vibe here with friendly staff and delicious coffee! The barista noticed I was peering over to check out his work on how to make the kawaii bear in the foam and made another one infront of me! 😊 😍 The 2nd floor reminded me those little cafe nooks in Santorini (minus the hot weather)....

The latte looked nice but tasted a little burnt.

The service was a little weird as well. Although there were many empty seats at the bottom floor and an entire empty room (as shown in the picture) they initially insisted I sit on the countertop on the second floor, and didn't want to let me sit on a chair at a table. I had to insist that I'd move if more...