Stripe Coffee Shop

An ube latte, matcha, and around thirty coffees

The signature order at Stripe Coffee Shop is the ube latte, a purple-yam milk drink that sits oddly and well next to a French office-district coffee list. Matcha tea covers the other non-coffee lane, and behind them is a coffee selection running to some thirty different coffees, which is more range than a business-tower counter usually bothers with.

The juices are squeezed rather than poured from a carton, which is the same instinct that runs through the food. Freshly squeezed fruit juices and detox drinks round out the drinks, aimed at the same customers who come for the food's nutrition-led angle. The brief the shop sets itself is breakfast through to afternoon tea, and the menu is built to cover the whole of that stretch rather than just the morning peak.

A La Défense stop built for the working day

The cafe sits on the ground floor of Tour Aurore in Courbevoie, in the middle of the La Défense business district, and it is shaped by that in the useful sense: it runs on the rhythms of a working day. A video call with a coffee, a break with colleagues, a quick healthy lunch, a pause between meetings.

There is a terrace with comfortable furniture for the days that allow it. The atmosphere is modern and relaxed rather than designed to impress, and the room functions as part refreshment point, part light-lunch stop and part workday amenity. It is a daytime place, and the evening belongs elsewhere.

What to eat with the drink

On the sweet side, banana bread, carrot cake and cookies are the reliable pairings with an ube latte or a matcha. The savoury side goes further than a snack counter, with cooked dishes, refrigerated vegetarian options and desserts, made in house and developed with nutritionists using good ingredients. That is the thread linking the juices, the detox drinks and the food into a single idea.

Vegetarian eaters are unusually well served, with chilled options kept ready for a stop that has to be quick. A grounded order is an ube latte with banana bread for a mid-morning break, or a cooked dish and a squeezed juice when the stop is standing in for lunch. Coffee drinkers should ask what is on among the thirty, because that list is the part of the menu that rewards a regular.