Over a little bistro table on the back wall of Fontaine we transformed this cafe into a salon, interviewing some of the most influencers in Paris coffee today. They included Antoine Netien, co-owner and master roaster at Coutume Café, the enormously influential Parisian coffee roasting brand now with locations in Tokyo and Osaka; Mihaela Iordache, a Romanian classical guitar prodigy who gave it all up to follow her ardent love of coffee, and is now the head roaster at Belleville; Nicolas Piégay, whose KB Coffeeshop in Pigalle was among the first to serve good coffee in the French capital; and David Nigel Flynn, an American expat in the grand Parisian tradition whose influence has helped transform coffee in France, and who today co-owns Belleville Brûlerie and La Fontaine de Belleville.
