Café Debrett, Auckland Central

I'm a creature of habit, and once I've hit on a good thing I tend not to stray too far from it, hence my daily cup generally comes from the lovely people at ME Coffee Boutique on Albert Street. However, finding myself on Shortland Street and a few minutes early for a meeting this morning, I stopped by Café Debrett for a flat white.

So it's 0945 on a Tuesday, in a café in Auckland's CBD, and there's two people in it, sitting in silence waiting for their takeaway cups. I approach the counter. After waiting for a minute or so, I cough gently. One of the two chaps behind the counter notices me, takes my order, berates the barista for not working fast enough, and grimly turns back to whatever he was doing that was so much more important than serving customers (making wraps, I think).

A few minutes later, an all-too-familiar Allpress cup is dumped on the counter before me. Wordlessly, sullenly. It's too hot, slightly scalded, underextracted, careless. The flavour is dull even for Allpress, from whom I've come to expect an average but consistent brew.

So don't bother. In this area there are a dozen better coffee places within spitting distance, so there's no excuse to deal with this sort of appalling service and sub-standard product. The food looks ok; pides, wraps, that sort of thing, but from my experience in there it's all prepared with the sort of scowl that fair turns the stomach. Yeah, you might be having a bad day, but that doesn't mean your customers have to as well.


Café Debrett
Hotel Debrett
Shortland Street
Auckland