I've been very happy with the glut of recent Bredase coffee house openings in the past few months and I've been trying to cover as many as possible in the weekends. When I tried Batista Cafe earlier on today I was quite excited. It has a different look and feel to the interior, outdoor seating right on the Grote Markt, and what looked to be plenty of staff.
The real issue here is two fold:
Plenty of staff appears to translate into plenty of chaos rather than plenty of service. We waited nearly 10 minutes to have our order taken then another 12 for the coffees to arrive.
Secondly, the coffee is terrible. It doesn't seem to be the preparation of the drinks themselves, more that the coffee is burned in the roast, to the point of being nearly undrinkably bitter. I never take sugar in my coffee but the only way to be able to get mine down was to dump a whole stick of it in.
They get some points for decor and the nice little shortbreads they include with the drinks, but if you're on the lookout for somewhere to drunk an unsweetened coffee I'd look elsewhere. read more