Frenchie's Cafe
529 United Street
Key West FL
2021

French-style cafe fare whipped up for breakfast & lunch in a charming cottage with a porch & patio.

https://www.frenchieskeywest.com/

While visiting Key West in 2011, lifelong friends Stephanie and Xavier fell in love with the island and decided to make it their home. When you are French, everything worthwhile begins with love, and of course lots of wine! They moved their entire world from Paris and started anew. Within a few months, they had purchased a building and set in motion their plan -- to open Frenchie' Cafe.

To Stephanie and Xavier, both passionate culinary aficionados, the idea of juxtaposing traditional French cuisine with the local Cuban flavors of Key West, seemed an artful and intriguing pursuit. They were further inspired by the local penchant for tiny cups of Cuban coffee called Bucci. These, without the sugar, are very similar to the pure French espresso that runs through Stephanie's veins. Clearly Key West was the perfect place and the fit could not be better.

Stephanie worked many years in Paris, as a professional baker and pastry chef in the 5th and 12th Arrondissment, and as proprietor of Les Moulins de Paris baking school. Once in Key West, she quickly captivated an appreciative niche of locals and visitors alike, with her fresh baked pastries, homemade breads, decadent French desserts, and daily selection of specialty quiche.

Xavier, also a veteran of Parisian food culture, was Chef Owner of a traditional French brasserie in the Bercy district for years. His fondness for French "feel good" food and personal joie de vivre, allowed him to assimilate easily with the Key West state of mind. Here he applies his expertise to consistently translate this exuberance to the plate.

From coffee, espresso, pastries and delightfully French breakfast dishes, to gourmet cheeses and chevre chaud salad, or salade niçoise to pan bagnat and a wide variety of French bread paninis, all are visitor and local favorites that make everyone happy.

Together, Stephanie and Xavier complement each other in the kitchen and their recipes for delicious cuisine mirror their appreciation of Key West. If you are fortunate enough to find yourself in the neighborhood, stop by for a bite...and maybe an espresso!



No one knows exactly how or when coffee was discovered, though there are many legends about its origin.


https://www.ncausa.org/About-Coffee/History-of-Coffee

Coffee grown worldwide can trace its heritage back centuries to the ancient coffee forests on the Ethiopian plateau. There, legend says the goat herder Kaldi first discovered the potential of these beloved beans.

The story goes that that Kaldi discovered coffee after he noticed that after eating the berries from a certain tree, his goats became so energetic that they did not want to sleep at night.

Kaldi reported his findings to the abbot of the local monastery, who made a drink with the berries and found that it kept him alert through the long hours of evening prayer. The abbot shared his discovery with the other monks at the monastery, and knowledge of the energizing berries began to spread.

As word moved east and coffee reached the Arabian peninsula, it began a journey which would bring these beans across the globe.


The history of coffee dates back centuries in Ethiopia and Yemen. It was already known in Mecca in the 15th century. Also, in the 15th century, Sufi monasteries in Yemen employed coffee as an aid to concentration during prayers. Coffee later spread to the Levant in the early 16th century; it caused some controversy on whether it was halal in Ottoman and Mamluk society. Coffee arrived in Italy the second half of the 16th century through commercial Mediterranean trade routes, while Central and Eastern Europeans learned of coffee from the Ottomans. By the mid 17th century, it had reached India and the East Indies.


Coffee houses were established in Western Europe by the late 17th century, especially in Holland, England, and Germany. One of the earliest cultivations of coffee in the New World was when Gabriel de Clieu brought coffee seedlings to Martinique in 1720. These beans later sprouted 18,680 coffee trees which enabled its spread to other Caribbean islands such as Saint-Domingue and also to Mexico. By 1788, Saint-Domingue supplied half the world's coffee.


By 1852, Brazil became the world's largest producer of coffee and has held that status ever since. The period since 1950 saw the widening of the playing field owing to the emergence of several other major producers, notably Colombia, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, and Vietnam; the latter overtook Colombia and became the second-largest producer in 1999. Modern production techniques along with the mass productization of coffee has made it a household item today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_coffee


Today, coffee is one of the world's most popular beverages, with a significant cultural and economic impact globally.