Pick Up The Fork

A Serious Eater's Guide to Buenos Aires and Beyond

Full City Coffee House: Real Coffee Has Finally Arrived

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**FULL CITY COFFEE HOUSE HAS CHANGED LOCATIONS AND IS NOW IN PALERMO SOHO ON THAMES**

full city coffee house

Coffee lovers look no further, your days of disappointed watered-down, milk bathed, sugar roasted cortados are over. Full City Coffee House in Chacarita is the absolute real deal, serving their own brand of high quality Colombian coffee and becoming one of the best spots in Buenos Aires for a cup of the good stuff.

The owners of this independent coffee house know their shit when it comes to coffee. Upon ordering your coffee, you’ll be asked “How do you like it?” Not quite sure how to answer, since I didn’t know there are many variations of a cortado, I let the barista decide.  The Colombian-UK couple, Victoria Angarita and Allan Dorgan, take the utmost pride in offering this much needed addition to the Buenos Aires café scene, a country that prides itself on their café culture.

Victoria has coffee running through her veins. The daughter of Colombian coffee God, her father Parmenio Angarita is kinda a big deal in the coffee world: coffee educator, an expert roaster with his own brand of coffee, and founding director of EduCafés, a school created for baristas and those who want to specialize in the art of all things coffee.

Named after the type of medium roast that produces a higher level of quality coffee, Full City serves a full menu of breakfast, lunch and merienda items. You’ll see treats such as Allan’s famous homemade burger, a wide selection of paninis, various salads, and of course, Colombian specialities.  The prices are very affordable, with most items costing under 35 pesos, something that is quite rare in the BA café world.

In addition to coffee, Allan is also a burger freak and worked very hard to perfect his recipe: fresh ground beef with mixed spices inside cumin and paprika, lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese and an egg on top, served with perfectly cooked roasted potato fries. What really kicked the burger up a notch: ask for some extra spice to smother on the bun. Want to pair it with coffee? No problem! Apparently the burger goes really well with the café de Guayata, a coffee named after a town close to Bogotá, where all the coffee is harvested by the local women.

Next, the “Arepa Full City,” an arepa with chicken, tomato, cheese and pesto. I’m not versed in arepa knowledge, but the ones I’ve tried were from Venezuela and quite different, looking similar to a semi-open stuffed pita bread. This one was made with a corn masa, and tasted similar to a corn tortilla. This arepa wasn’t my favorite, bad ordering on my behalf as I was looking for an out of character light lunch. The pesto on top of cheese on top of grilled chicken on top of corny-arepa was too much for my stomach to handle.  Probably next time I’d go with a daily special, stick with the burger or try one of the paninis.

Other than the coffee, super friendly staff, quick service, tasty and reasonably priced food, Full City has an inviting atmosphere making it the ideal spot to sit for hours. It’s become my new favorite café to bring my laptop and do work; the WiFi is pretty strong and they have ample outlets for computer charging.

Their outdoor patio might be one of the best havens in the city,  despite the loud HipHop music from the dance studio upstairs. There is a covered outdoor “living” area and an open-aired garden section with a couple of tables. I did spot some heat lamps – crucial for winter outdoor seating.

Ditch Cabrales or Bonafide, since they roast and grind the coffee fresh in house, you can pick some up para llevar and shoot up every morning with the good shit.

Full City Coffee House’s passion for coffee is evident in every cup. I admit that for my coffee fix I’d frequent Starbucks (Soy Bullshit Latte) or Establicimiento de Café, but this great coffee haven is quite the BA find, quickly converting into my new go-to coffee shop to gorge on paninis and crack out on endless cups of strong, beautifully aroma-ed coffee.

Full City Coffee House

Jorge Newberry 3663 (between Charlone y Roseti), Chacarita Thames 1535
Tel. 4556-1789
Monday – Friday: 9am – 7pm, Saturdays: 10am-3pm, closed Sundays

Author: ForkYou

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Comments

Comments

    • Ok, wish I could spell or even articulate what I wanted to say. I leave in 3 weeks!

  2. The coffee at this place is most definitely the best in BA! We were a bit disappointed in the breakfasts though – the arepa and the continental breakfasts were a bit bland and the toast was very undercooked. Will go back for the coffee though!

    • How can you have “very undercooked” toast? You mean bread? That you had bread, not toast, with your breakfast?

    • I read your blog all the time. I check it on a regular basis. Then I think of my blog and how your life seems so much more extciing than mine. Keep writing! I will comment more. Usually I just laugh or cry right along with you!Love, Bonnie

    • For me this is a relatively easy qusieton, but has a pretty complex answer. The specialty I have actually looked forward to working with is OB/GYN. I find that the ability of a woman’s body to produce a child, endure the amount of abuse it takes during a pregnancy, and the amount of pain endured during delivery is amazing. The joy of being able to be present as life enters the world is truly one of the greatest moments in life. To me that would be the best possible option. I also would love working in the operating room with a surgeon. I have experienced the OR quite a few times, and have been on both sides of the table. I have to say I would love to work with any surgeon in the OR except for Orthopedics. The reason behind that is the surgery’s are pretty brutal when it comes to the skeletal system. Having been in the OR with an Orthopedic surgeon and seeing the use of the saws, hammers and other heavy equipment in order to perform the surgery just sends chills up my spine. I know that type of surgery is not for me. I think my favorite surgeries have to be that of the abdominal cavity. The specialties that I would least like to work for are few, and for simple reasons. Pediatrics is not a specialty for me since I have four children of my own. My Aunt is a neonatal nurse practitioner and I followed her in high school and saw the good, the bad, and the ugly so I can honestly say I could not emotionally handle that type of position. Podiatry is also an area I could not see myself working. The reason behind this is pretty silly, but here goes, I very much dislike other peoples feet especially if they are not well kept. I know in the medical field you will encounter feet on a daily basis, but I could not mainly work with feet on an everyday basis. My last specialty is Orthopedics for the reasons I noted above about the barbaric nature of the surgeries and treatments for the musculoskeletal system. Its just not for me.

    • Mala onda la de tu mensaje, el hecho de ser colombianos no nos involucra a todos con este mal de la humanidad.

      Comentario estupido!!!

    • Si totalmente de acuerdo ese comentario demuestra la incultura e ignorancia de alguien sobre un pais tan lindo como Colombia.

    • Amigo, si los lugares de tu gusto son los que frecuentan los narcos estas en el equivocado, de todas formas te invito a que amplies tus conocimientos y te tomes un buen cafe colombiano. Te recomiendo que tambien conozcas a los colombianos, que son personas maravillosas y te quites esos estigmas, eso solo te hace parecer un ignorante. :)

    • I have not really choesn what kind of specialists I would like to work under, but I do believe that it would be fun to work in a Psychiatrist’s office. I originally was going for my B.A. in Psychology, but switched. There are so many to choose from that sound absolutely interesting. Such as working under an Internist or going simple and working under a Family practitioner. Even Gerontologist sounds like fun. I love the “aging population” and they have stories and much to teach.For the moment I am going to take this degree one step at a time and try to find the place that fits me best.

  5. I just went this morning, as you I was expecting something different from the Arepa (a friend of mine is colombian and she does something almost like a pita bread too) but it was good. Very friendly staff. I’ll go back….too bad they close at 3 on sats!!

  12. Nice review, want to check this place out soon.

    I’m guessing this is a typo:

    “Guayata, a coffee named after a town close to Bogotá, where all the coffee is harvested by the local WOMAN.”

    But please leave it that way as I love the image of a place in Colombia where there is only one woman in the population, with all of the men chasing after her, but she’s too busy harvesting all of the coffee on her own to pay them any attention.

    :-)

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  13. “our days of disappointed watered-down, milk bathed, sugar roasted cortados are over”, writes our all-american girl. Ok, now I KNOW you don’t know anything about good coffee.

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