PHOTO: WES NAMAN

BY BLAKE DRIVER

Considering how many centuries Old Town has been around, it’s hard to believe that it’s still difficult to find a decent cup of coffee in that area. Then came God’s gift to man: Caffè Michelangelo, with its Seattle-style walk-up service window, covered patio, tasty coffee that seriously rivals any of the best in town (maybe even better than Java Joe’s awesome brews), pastries from Le Chantilly Fine Pastries and Café, and an owner/barista who’s made a few pretty rosettas on his lattes in the two months he’s been steaming milk at the new location.

"I’m still learning how to make them,” Tomàs Watson admits of his ability to properly top a latte. “Every latte’s another chance to try.”  

 

Located in what was one of the first service stations in Albuquerque, on the southeast corner of Mountain and 8th (a sunny 10-minute walk up the road from the Albuquerque Museum in a quiet, up-and-coming residential neighborhood) 

 

Watson has quite possibly discovered the true destiny of this historic adobe building: The best coffee service station in Albuquerque and a much needed appendage to Old Town. Watson says he recently spent three months in Italy, “staring at people making coffee,” but the idea for Caffè Michelangelo began on a previous trip to Italy four years ago. “(I’ve) been thinking about how it should look for four years now,” Watson says over the blue ‘short door’ service bar, an exact historical replica of the original, “and then the logo came to me in a dream,” he laughs.

 

In Watson’s version of Michelangelo’s famous Sistine Chapel ceiling fresco, the hands of God and Adam are exchanging a cup of coffee. If what’s in the cup is anything like the rich, full-bodied, no-joke brew that Watson serves, then it truly is a gift from the coffee deities, or at least from local roasting company Moons Coffee and Tea on Juan Tabo.  
“The secret is Moons,” Watson says of his ability to brew the best cup of coffee I’ve tasted since I left Seattle. “It’s always roasted fresh right before I pick it up.”  

 

According to Mun Barbour, Moons’ owner and roaster, the beans she gets from Central America, Africa, and Indonesia are specially picked for the dark espresso roast that Caffè Michelangelo serves up.
But there must be more to it than that.

 

“He’s not afraid to make a strong cup of coffee,” Watson’s friend Laura Keck says from her seat inside the miniscule quarters of the old service station, as she finishes the last of her cup. Though Michelangelo’s regular drip is brewed like most other coffees in town — in a standard Bunn percolator — Watson does admit to running his espresso shots a little longer than other places (between 21 and 30 seconds) to get the full flavor.

 

And surrounding the ultimate gift of good coffee are all the finishing touches of a fine café, the most notable being the sturdy patio tables and even one of cinematic artistic director Ed Vega’s original bronze sculptures out front.
Watson adds that the city of Albuquerque was a great help in getting him started.

 

“The city is really positive towards new businesses, and it was especially proactive in getting me the help I needed. All the people were very easy to work with and no one tried to run me around.”

 

Caffè Michelangelo
724 Mountain NW
7a-1:30p, Mon.-Fri.;
9a-12p, Sat.; Closed Sun. 

 

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