Best Café Ambiance '95

Best Café For Ambiance

Milagro Fine Coffees
3703 N. Campbell Ave.

READERS' PICK: Milagro is nothing but inviting--heavy beamed ceilings, lots of wood, natural colors and textures, sunny windows to peer out of as if you're in an aquarium looking out. The dark, cool space offers a welcoming shelter from the desert sun--save the patio for inclement days--and the wide, metal tables are just right for a cup of joe, a pastry, a sandwich and a laptop. We love the simplicity here. Milagro's bookstore and newstand are now, regrettably, closed; but the space they once filled is now often given over to local artwork.

READERS' POLL RUNNER-UP: Coffee connoisseurs, in case you haven't noticed, are fussy people. Each one insists on adhering to a specific, rigid formula of purchasing just the right beans, storing them in just the right container in just the right location, using only mountain spring water from a far corner of Switzerland (Colorado or New Jersey), brewing the stuff in just the right glass beaker or drip mechanism, serving it in just the right cup and then sipping the resulting blend in manner and surroundings befitting the brew's near-sacred nature. Passing the muster on this final phase is Café Magritte, 254 E. Congress St., a popular downtown restaurant with "just the right" combination of sophistication, urban-artsy funk and gracious charm. Whether you happen to be sitting in the high-ceilinged central dining room, aloft in the balcony or the espresso-barred Bowler Room, the atmosphere is well-suited to indulging that all-powerful coffee craving. The open-aired feeling of the space, the wood floors, the plant life and the gentle strains of some jazz tune floating on the breeze all contribute to a sense of achieving coffee nirvana.

STAFF PICK: We couldn't make up our minds, so we chose both the Cup Café, 311 E. Congress St., and Epic Café, 745 N. Fourth Ave. Brimming with an alternative feel that wouldn't be out of place in San Francisco or Seattle, both the Cup and Epic do the coffeehouse thing just right, which explains the clusters of hipsters who sit at both locales for hours on end, discussing existential philosophy and quaffing cappucino. The ambiance is just right for a principled argument over some ultimately meaningless issue, and that's what a coffeehouse is all about.

1998 Winner: Tie: Cup Café + Cuppuccinos Coffee House
1996 Winner: Café Magritte