Emesen

Lovely place with good coffee, and a great selection of books and magazines. The atmosphere is pretty nice, although I do not like the décor that much. It doesn’t feel that cozy.

Emesen is a super cute little café in the Museum of Modern Art, located right by the museum entrance.
If you blink you’ll miss it — as the café also is the museum’s book store and the first thing you see are tons of books (mainly about art obviously).
I felt inspired to come here the other day when walking home from Zlote Tarasy. The museum itself looks rather boring from the outside (they’re currently in the midst of building a new exhibition, I think, as there are some sort of construction works going on) but if you turn to the left right before the actual museum building you’ll find the entrance to the museum right in front of you and that’s where Emesen is located.
Why should you come here when there’s a Starbucks a few yards up at the corner of Emilii Plater and Swietokrzyska? Or when there’s a Costa a few yards down closer to Zlote Tarasy?
Well, that’s simple. The atmosohere is great (calm music, industrial interior, tons
of books), the prices are awesome (pretty much every coffee on the meny is priced below 10 pln), you can grab a bite to eat (but I didn’t so I can’t say anything about the quality nor taste of the food) and the people who work here are really friendly.
I bought a small cup of regular black coffee («Americano», 6 pln — the larger version costs 9 pln if I’m not mistaken) and the guy behind the counter was very helpful and down to Earth.
He brought the coffee cup to my table and my, I have to say it’s been a while since I’ve had coffee that good.
Americano tends to be a long shot here in Poland since it’s basically diluted espresso (so you never know how much water the barista will use) but this one didn’t have that watery taste nor did it taste foul when it cooled down a bit.
I highly recommend a visit to this place instead of the close-​by Starbucks. Better prices, better coffee.