4th Ave Espresso Bar

Rooftop honey in the signature latte

The drink to know here is the Olympic Honey Latte, made with honey from beehives on the roof of the Fairmont Olympic and blended with spices, which ties the espresso bar to the building it sits in more literally than most hotel cafes manage. The rest of the coffee programme runs on Ladro espresso, a Seattle roaster, poured through the usual range of milk drinks alongside hot teas and cold options. The bar occupies the hotel's lower lobby and works fast-casual: a counter, a pastry case and a queue that turns over quickly. It serves hotel guests, downtown workers and anyone passing who wants a proper coffee without walking into a full restaurant.

Pale blue, harlequin floors, quick turnover

The room is calm to look at and busy to stand in, with a pale blue interior and harlequin floors that read as hotel rather than coffee shop. Its position in the lower lobby suits short stops more than long stays, so the pattern is to come in, order, and carry the cup onward to a meeting, a walk or the rest of the building. Service is warm and quick, and the counter is used to people who need to be somewhere else shortly. Business travellers, families on hotel stays and locals after a hotel-grade pastry all use it for roughly the same twenty minutes. The food case gives it more range than a lobby coffee stand: scratch-made croissants and pastries, plus salads and sandwiches when the stop has to stand in for a meal, with gluten-free options among them.

Honey latte first, then the seasonal board

Start with the Olympic Honey Latte. The rooftop honey is the single most distinctive thing on the menu and the reason to order it before anything standard. After that, look at the seasonal drinks, which are where the bar puts its effort: strawberry and lavender lattes in summer, apple and spice in autumn, all built over the same Ladro espresso base. If you want the coffee straight, the espresso and the brewed options do the job without decoration. For food, a scratch-made croissant is the natural companion, and a sandwich or a salad turns the stop into a light meal. It is a compact menu, and the order that gets the most out of it is a seasonal latte, a pastry, and somewhere to be afterwards.