I took an interesting walk from the W to Ritual this morning. Ritual delivered on its reputation as one of America's finest coffee houses. Their espresso was a finely pulled ristretto which was sweet to the last drop. Utterly fantastic.

I wish I could have dragged the occupants from last night's wedding table to Ritual. They had been discussing their favourite brand of coffee: folgers (I won't even dignify it with capitalisation - let alone a link). If they knew that such elixir, such as Ritual's espresso, existed they would abandon their camel piss.

Here is my new cafe lineup:

1) Campos (Newtown, NSW, Australia)
2) Espresso Vivace (Seattle, WA, USA)
3) Ritual (San Francisco, CA, USA)
4) 2kf (Mona Vale, NSW, Australia)
5) Stumptown (Portland, OR, USA)
6) Anywhere in Melbourne (VIC, Australia)
7) Anywhere in Leichhardt (NSW, Australia)
8) Victrola (Seattle, WA, USA)
9) Anywhere in Italy that doesn't cater to tourists
10) Zoka (Seattle, WA, USA)
11) Segafredo (Shinjuku, Japan)

Note Italy is ranked low. The Italians make great coffee: but they don't take it seriously enough (not neccessarily a bad thing).

Update: I re-ordered some of the cafes and added Stumptown (which I totally forgot about - Sorry Rory). Went back to Ritual on Monday/Tuesday and it was good good good. It came close to displacing Vivace at #2.