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Three Questions with Emmanuel Bushiazzo of La Claque Café 

Emmanuel Bushiazzo 1

Emmanuel Bushiazzo. Courtesy photo.

In 2012, while completing his second postdoctoral fellowship in California researching coral conservation, Emmanuel Bushiazzo came across a library book about how to open a coffee shop for dummies.

When he wasn’t in Mexico collecting samples from coral reefs, Bushiazzo spent a lot of time in coffee shops, and the book lightly piqued his curiosity. He flipped through a few pages and decided to check it out. Then he read it in one day. 

“The author was talking about how passionate people are and how complex coffee is,” Bushiazzo recently told DCN. “It opened a lot of doors and prompted a lot of questions, so I read and read about coffee and the business of coffee.”

At the time, specialty coffee was still in its infancy in Nice, France, where Bushiazzo grew up, and he perceived an opportunity.  

“I knew if I came back to France, I could have an impact,” Bushiazzo said. 

In 2013, he began barista training at the legendary La Caféothèque in Paris, and later started doing his own pop-up coffee events throughout the city in 2015. These events allowed him to introduce specialty coffee to people who might not have otherwise ventured into a specialty coffee shop.  

Bushiazzo officially launched La Claque Café Nomade in 2017. Though based in Paris, the business is intentionally nomadic, including pop-up setups that can easily reach destinations throughout France and places farther afield in Europe. 

Emmanuel Bushiazzo 2

Courtesy photo.

In 2023, Bushiazzo took the next major step, opening a brick-and-mortar multiroaster cafe in Nice. The permanent La Claque — which translates to “the slap,” as in a good slap of coffee — features a large coffee menu with beans from a variety of French roasters, with roasters rotating every two weeks for variety. The shop currently stays open seven days a week. 

“It’s a reward,” Bushiazzo said. “People are happy to have such an environment, and one they can count on every day.”

La Claque also operates a coffee school near the cafe, including certified Specialty Coffee Association courses. Between the two facilities, Bushiazzo has been adapting to a less nomadic coffee life in recent months. 

“You lose a little bit of your personal freedom having to be at the cafe at certain times,” he said. “Apart from school, I’ve never been enclosed in such a way. With science, I never worked in an environment where you had to be there between such and such times. I’ve always been able to organize my time.”

The big upside is being part of a growing coffee community in Nice, where more coffee shops and roasters are bringing forth high-quality specialty coffees. 

“It’s a good community; we send customers to each other,” said Bushiazzo. “I can say that we are very much at the beginning, but we can sense that there’s something happening.”

Here’s more from DCN’s conversation with Bushiazzo… 

What about coffee excites you most?

From the science aspect, the complexity of coffee at all the different stages fascinates me. There’s always something new to learn in coffee. It’s a never-ending process of learning — the complexity from a biology point of view, from the cultivation to the business, the economic, environmental and social aspects of it, to the sensory aspects. 

From the community aspect, it brings so many people together in one room, and together as a whole. I’m really involved in creating communities in France through an association of baristas that I created, and the AeroPress championship that I organized. Now that I have the coffee shop, creating that local community has been an amazing experience. 

What about coffee troubles you most?

Again, as a biologist, the obvious environmental burden and climate change. But also thinking about whether people can live well from coffee? Can the farmer live well? Can a barista in Paris live well where the rent is crazy? Can the coffee shop owner live well? And is the business actually profitable? Can everybody in specialty coffee live well? And if that’s not the case, why is that so? Who’s taking too much of a piece? I would like to know more about this, so I can better understand the economics of the industry. 

What would you be doing if it weren’t for coffee?

I probably would not work in science. I do miss the vicinity of extraordinary minds, but not the rest of it. I would honestly spend my days fermenting stuff. I love fermentation. It’s so much fun. It’s amazing what you can do with fermentation. 

And if it were not fermentation, my secret love would be to open the best fresh pasta restaurant in town. I love pasta. 


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