Peregrine Espresso
Washington DC 20009
and
660 Pennsylvania Ave SEWashington DC 20003
Read about my planned cappuccino tour around the DC area.
Read about my first visit to the 14th street Peregrine just after its opening.
I discovered Peregrine Espresso shortly after moving to DC, and I have been going there pretty frequently since. As I wondered around the DC espresso scene, I soon realized that they likely have the best cappuccino in the district, but I haven’t had a chance to do a review. But last week, I took my camera with me to 14th street location to drink a cappuccino and get some work done. It was as good as always.
Peregrine has two locations; one in the lovely Eastern Market neighborhood of SE DC, and one on 14th St NW in the Midcity neighborhood. It was started by an ex-barista of Murky Coffee, which was at the Eastern Market location before its owner Nick Cho was banished from DC. The Eastern Market shop is Peregrine’s original location, and is a little larger than the 14th street location (though they are both small), but both have the same sunny interior.
This time I checked out the 14th St. location, because it is on the green line of the Metro (and I wanted to head to College Park afterward), but I usually prefer the Eastern Market location because its neighborhood is one of the nicest in DC. The large market there is open every day and carries many meats, fishes, and vegetables; there is also farmers market and flea market on Saturdays and Sundays. It is all worth checking out. That said, 14th street is a pretty interesting area as well, close to the U st corridor, featuring several music venues, bars, restaurants, galleries, and furniture stores (actually, a ton of furniture for some reason).
Ok, now to the consumables. Peregrine has really good muffins and other baked goods, but the real show is the espresso. They serve Counter Culture Coffee, which is phenomenal stuff. I almost always order the cappuccino, though their espresso and
pour-over coffee are also great. I’ll give my tasting notes from this week’s visit, but it was entirely consistent with my other visits there. The latte art was exceptional, and the microfoam was perfect. The underlying espresso was a bit nutty and sweet, with the microfoam and milk mixing in to yield some nice milk chocolate notes. Exceptional all around. Ok, the numbers (all out of 5):
Smoothness: 4.8
Presentation: 5
Strength: 5
Complexity: 4.2
Foam: 5
Mean: 4.8
SD: .35
If you are in DC, you should head to one of Peregrine’s locations; it will be worth the trip. I’m going to predict that this will be the best cappuccino that I find in DC, though there are several others that might come close. In the next few weeks, I’m going to try to hit some of the places that I think are top contenders to match Peregrine’s cappuccino. So we shall see.