- Michael Gebert
- Darko Arandjelovic and Xavier Alexander
I got a note saying that a relatively new Chicago-based coffee roaster, Metric Coffee in West Town, had won a Good Food Award, an award given in San Francisco to artisan producers in various categories. OK, that’s nice. (Metropolis also won an award for their coffee.) But as I kept reading I discovered that the two guys who own Metric, Darko Arandjelovic (Caffe Streets in West Town) and Xavier Alexander (formerly of Intelligentsia), spent a year restoring a 1960s German coffee roaster to make coffee just the way they wanted it. Now I was interested; we were in the realm of the truly obsessed, which is where all the really good food and drink comes from.
What do you think would taste off about it?
Arandjelovic: I’m coming from Serbia, and in our house and I guess nationwide, it’s tradition and almost a must that people get together and bring coffee. It’s a custom, you go to see the a friend, or the doctor, you bring 100 grams of coffee. I kind of didn’t like it because I was always in trouble, so if people were getting together, they were talking about me, and I was like, oh, again?
When I met Darko a couple of years ago, I was working for Intelligentsia Coffee, we started talking about possibly collaborating, and what I was doing was Googling in German looking for an antique roaster, and I got a hit, and, lo and behold, we started doing business with the man who ended up screwing us over. But honestly, it was kind of a blessing in disguise, in that we learned how to put it back together, and it’s been working beautifully ever since.
Alexander: We like coffees that are clean, coffees that have a really nice balance of sweetness and acidity. But on our menu we have other styles, we have a dark roast, for instance. We do try to cater to different palates.
So what are your plans for growth or world domination?
