Ritual Coffee Culture

This will be short and sweet. Ritual Café Culture’s first location was and still is adjacent to the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Las Condes. This is a paper cup only café similar to Starbucks. They offer private-label coffee from a few origins including one of Brazil’s respected producers, Daterra, for their espresso.

They sell bagged beans, coffee accessories and brewing and drip machines.

Coffee is churned out on a mid-grade espresso machine requiring skilled baristas.

I had a cappuccino with an unimpressive foam on top that tasted a bit bitter. Perhaps bad coffee. Perhaps over-extracted. Either way, it wasn’t a very good cup of coffee.

They have a menu for pre-made sandwiches, salads, and handful of pre-made pastries. Nothing impressive. In fact, slightly unimpressive. And a few items listed on the menu were not available.

This location, and the new second, located on Isidora Goyenechea adjoining the Intercontinental Hotel, are extremely small. There is no seating indoors. There’s barely enough room for three people to stand in front of the counter. There is ample seating out front on the sidewalk in a cramped, uncovered terrace, with nice high-quality water-resistant furniture, surrounded by the landscaping of the Ritz-Carlton, which is pleasant.

There is a door going from the café into the Ritz-Carlton Hotel lobby, but it was locked on the day I bought coffee at Ritual. Taking your coffee into the lobby of the hotel would be awkward if you were not a guest of the hotel.

Bottom line, if you’re looking for a Starbucks replacement or if you’re in a hurry for a quick cup of coffee to go this is as good as gets within a two-block area.

If you’re willing to walk four or five blocks there plenty of better options with ample seating. That’s true for both locations, with a Juan Valdez and a Starbucks within a couple of blocks. If you don’t mine sharing the room with a Japanese tourist with an oversized camera, you can have a cup of coffee and avoid the rain and wind in Estró, the restaurant inside the Ritz-Carlton, which I personally find to be a more pleasant experience. But then again, I like Japanese tourists with cameras.

As if this somewhat ho-hum review wasn’t sufficiently derogatory, the link I followed to the café’s website yielded the following warning in both Chrome and Firefox browsers, which is a clear indication of a poorly-managed business.