Norway Meets NOLA at the Applied Arts Coffee Cafe

At the Applied Arts Coffee shop in New Orleans. All images courtesy of Applied Arts Coffee.

Next door to its Piety Street roastery and kitchen in New Orleans, Applied Arts Coffee opened its first full-service cafe last month, pairing a chef-driven Scandinavian brunch program with fresh-roasted specialty coffee.

Square tiles line the walls above patterned pillows, with a blue velvet banquette, natural wood tabletops and quaint blue chairs. The design evokes quiet corners of Oslo or Stockholm while softening the building’s industrial feel into something more personable and cozy.

For the pottery, potted greenery and earthen tones throughout, Applied Arts Coffee Co-Founders Baruch Rabasa and Melissa Stewart drew more influence from coffee-producing countries than from coffee-loving Scandinavia.

“Concept-wise, we wanted to hint at a Mexico City vibe, without knocking people over the head with it,” Stewart told Daily Coffee News. “We wanted good lighting, an airy and comfortable atmosphere, and a good mix of textures and layers — like Baruch’s cooking philosophy.”

Rabasa, who graduated at the top of his class at the Culinary Institute of America, was born in Mexico City to a Catalonian father and American mother. His earlier career in professional kitchens focused on French-inspired, Mexican and Western European dishes.

At Applied Arts, Rabasa deviates from that route with a menu inspired by Stewart’s Norwegian heritage. At its center is smørrebrød, the open-faced sandwich traditional to Norway and other Nordic countries featuring dense Scandinavian rye or pumpernickel piled high with meats, fish, cheeses or spreads and garnishes.

Options include beet-cured gravlax, minced beet tartare with dill aioli, pickled and smoked mushrooms, shiitake “bacon” and various cheeses and vegetables. Everything is made in-house, including all breads and pastries, seasonal jams and pickled herring.

“My sous-chef and I spent about six months researching, trial-and-erroring breads and ferments and stuff like that,” Rabasa told Daily Coffee News. “We’re skilled cook-chefs already, so it wasn’t like trying something that was out of left field. It was just reapplying techniques.”

Baristas work with a La Marzocco espresso machine paired with a Ceado grinder, while a Ground Control machine runs for drip coffee and cold brew. Manual pourovers are also available.

Roasting for wholesale and online sales started about four years ago in Portland, Oregon, where Applied Arts had access to a shared roasting facility, green coffees from Sustainable Harvest and the now-defunct Catalyst Trade, and training by coffee consultant and Iteration Coffee founder Rob Hoos.

In 2023, the owners relocated to New Orleans and launched with a San Franciscan SF-6 before upgrading to the 15-kilo Loring machine they use today. Roast levels range from Nordic light to more developed mediums, depending on the bean.

“We do have more light roasts than dark roasts and like to rotate in some limited releases,” Stewart said. “We like to have a wide spectrum of roast levels, so anyone can find an Applied Arts Coffee that they love. We also like to have a range of processing methods.”

Coffees come from importers such as Crop to Cup, Primavera Coffee and De La Finca. Coffees sold under the name Project Pijao come from a regenerative farm in Colombia called El Tesorito run by Rabasa’s brother, Miles Grovenburg, with assistance from their mother and other siblings.

Situated between 1,800-2,100 meters above sea level in the Pijao area of Quindió, Colombia, the farm is now four harvests in and grows mostly low-yielding, high-quality varieties including Gesha and Pink and Yellow Bourbon. These undergo post-harvest processes including honey process and carbonic maceration inoculated with champagne yeast.

“It’s kind of a full-family project, but it’s crazy because one [family member] lives in New York City, one lives in upstate New York, one lives in Portland and I live in New Orleans,” Rabasa said. “The money-making part is New Orleans, and hands from all over the country contribute to making it happen.”

Applied Arts currently imports, roasts and sells all of the farm’s exported output, while the hope is for future harvests to continue growing exponentially in volume. Meanwhile in New Orleans, the aim is to continue dialing in the cafe and training new staff.

“Right now, we are working on getting the word out and getting to the point where either of us can have a day off,” said Stewart. “We’re not sure what’s next. We have arrived at an exciting point and are very focused on that.”

Applied Arts Coffee is located at 600 Piety St in New Orleans. 

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