Coffee and Cataclysm at the Carlyle Hotel ⇥ sprudge.com

Alex Bernson for Sprudge:

But the $8 cappuccino is no myth. It is available to the public 7 days a week in the Bemelman’s Bar at The Carlyle hotel. It’s the least appealing cappuccino I’ve ever had. It is a heterotopic cappuccino. A symbolic cappuccino. A cappuccino without merits of its own, defined wholly by the place where it is found. New York City’s most expensive cappuccino — and also, its worst.

Scathing. Then again, if you’re paying novelty prices in a novelty environment, you shouldn’t expect the product to be defined by taste. The best cappuccino I’ve ever had was in Vancouver at 49^th Parallel’s shop on fourth avenue. A close second is the cappuccino served by Phil & Sebastian here in Calgary. Both are less than $4.