Manufactures Alain Ducasse

Coffee made the way the chocolate is

The counter folds coffee into the Alain Ducasse workshop system, which is the reason to come rather than the coffee alone. Le Café Alain Ducasse, the coffee branch of the Manufactures, started in 2019, roasting for the group rather than buying beans in, and it is built like the rest of the house: named products, origin cues and a strong retail spine rather than a long board of café variations. L’Espresso is the anchor, a signature blend split between Brazil and India. L’Italien pushes Brazil into a darker register in capsule form, Colombie is a single-country Castillo coffee, Ethiopia turns up in a discovery set, and Le Filtre brings hazelnut, almond and chocolate into the cup. Coffee is not an add-on to the chocolate here, and the chocolate is not garnish for the coffee.

A working room before it is a café room

The room has the feel of a manufacture because that is what it is. The chocolate side is built on hand production, old machines and traditional method, and the same language carries into coffee, biscuits and ice cream. The setting is deliberately rough rather than soft, a workshop of some 320 square metres rather than a salon.

Counter service suits that better than table ceremony. You look, ask, choose, and move between the case and the shelves, and the pleasure is in seeing the categories talk to each other: coffee beside chocolate boxes, biscuits beside ganaches, macarons beside the pieces built to travel. Read the counter first, then order.

Start with L'Espresso, then choose the box

Order L’Espresso if coffee is the reason for the walk. The Brazil and India blend is the clearest coffee statement the house makes, built to carry the name without leaning on novelty.

If the visit is about taking something away, go to the chocolate bonbons rather than treating them as an afterthought. This is where the Manufacture de Chocolat is deepest, Paris-made, hand-shaped and rooted in the same production-first idea as the roast. Macarons and biscuits are the softer second order, and the biscuit line has its own craft, French butters and flours and a lighter hand with sugar. For a first pass, espresso and bonbons make the cleanest argument, and the biscuits are the thing to carry out.