Editor’s note: This is the third in a four-part series on coffee shops in Montgomery County that was printed in the November/December issue of Bethesda Magazine. Read part one here, part two here and part four on Thursday.
Good food & merch
These spots are out-of-town chains with out-the-door brunch lines, better-than-expected food and stylish shopping opportunities.
Maman
Maman (French for “mother”) was opened as a cafe and bakery in New York’s Soho neighborhood in 2014 by French-born Benjamin Sormonte and his Canadian wife Elisa Marshall. The chain has 41 locations, including those in New York City, Florida, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Canada and the Washington, D.C., area. Maman’s decor and sensibility is rustic country French, and the cafe sells a corresponding host of pretty goods, such as its vintage blue-and-white toile tableware, baby clothes, bunny vases and Maman: The Cookbook: All-Day Recipes to Warm Your Heart, plus house beans from Methodical Coffee in Greenville, South Carolina. Lattes are pretty, too, as are tartines served on wooden boards. Even croissants arrive attractively nestled in a basket.
7140 Bethesda Lane, Bethesda, 301-656-1526, mamannyc.com
Tatte Bakery & Café
Founded in 2008 in Boston by Tzurit Or, a pastry chef and former film producer who grew up in a kibbutz in Israel, Tatte Bakery & Café (Tatte rhymes with latte and is the Hebrew nickname for “grandmother” and the Yiddish word for “daddy”) now has 40 locations in the Boston and D.C. areas. And there’s more to come with new cafes scheduled to open near the end of 2024 at Westbard Square in Bethesda and early 2025 at Towne Plaza in Rockville. With its high ceilings and tile walls, the black-and-white bedecked downtown Bethesda locale can get noisy. Still, it’s the go-to spot for a subtle Tatte House Latte (spiked with honey-halva syrup and cardamom), an appealing array of pastries, and a long menu of tempting selections, including the signature shakshuka, the North African tomato sauce-and-egg entree that’s swoon-worthy here. In fact, you can keep the gustatory memory alive with a shakshuka-emblazoned sweatshirt, or browse through other merch, such as artfully packaged cookies, honey granola and custom-blended house beans from George Howell Coffee and Gracenote Coffee, two Massachusetts-based roasters.
7276 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda, 240-534-2115, tattebakery.com
Great baked goods
Sunday Morning Bakehouse
At Sunday Morning Bakehouse, the brioche doughnuts and croissants steal the limelight, yet we often veer toward the cake slices, such as a super moist and citrusy orange loaf, or a rectangle of cinnamon coffeecake that’s an A-plus rendition. Fine partners are the coffee drinks made with beans from renowned Philadelphia roaster La Colombe, which also operates five cafes in D.C. The busy Pike & Rose shop, owned by Montgomery County resident Caroline Yi, started serving cocktails earlier this year (available only on Saturdays and Sundays). So go ahead, have an Irish coffee with that chocolate croissant.
11869 Grand Park Ave. (Pike & Rose), North Bethesda, 240-669-8202, sundaymorningbakehouse.com
Tout de Sweet
The chic Tout de Sweet patisserie in Bethesda, opened by Jerome and Sofia Colin in 2011, serves coffee made with locally roasted Mayorga beans. An Americano with a pain aux raisin is pure pleasure. In fact, with Tout de Sweet’s stunning display of confections (including its signature rainbow array of macarons), you can’t go wrong with any of the possible coffee-and-pastry pairings. As for Jerome Colin, he likes his morning latte with a lemon blueberry or seasonal scone.
7831 Woodmont Ave., Bethesda, 301-951-0474, toutdesweetshop.com
While latte artists practice their craft in a cup, Stefanie Stark, 54, won a competition designing art on a cup. In 2022, the Bethesda fine artist took the top honor in a contest sponsored by the New York-based chain Maman before it opened its new cafe on Bethesda Lane. Her design was printed on 5,000 limited edition to-go cups (they’ve all been handed out).
“When I saw their aesthetic, it paired very well with my work,” says Stark, whose acrylic paintings showcase abstract flora. Maman chose a detail shot from one of her paintings for the cup and included Stark’s name, website and Instagram handle on it.
After the cafe opened, several of her paintings were hung there, and they fit in so well with the style and decor that some people didn’t realize they were for sale, Stark says. A couple were eventually sold; two were removed for Stark’s art show at Addison/Ripley Fine Art gallery in Georgetown in early 2024; and two are still on display.
“It was a great experience,” Stark says about the whole opportunity, and “I do love coffee.”
This story appears in the November/December 2024 issue of Bethesda Magazine.
