Baruch Rabasa spent years grinding in New Orleans kitchens, but his latest project swaps white tablecloths for a roastery-café tucked into the Bywater. At Applied Arts Coffee, he and partner Melissa Stewart roast beans on-site, turn out dense Nordic-style loaves and pile smørbrød, Scandinavian open-faced sandwiches, in a bright, minimalist storefront. It is a chef-driven take on the most everyday of rituals: morning coffee, house bread and grab-and-go sandwiches for the neighborhood.
The café sits at 600 Piety Street and bills itself as both a roastery and a neighborhood counter-service spot. According to Applied Arts Coffee, the shop offers retail bags, local pickup and delivery, plus daily morning service from the Piety Street address. The operation is family-run, pairing Rabasa’s kitchen chops with visual artist Melissa Stewart’s design sensibility to shape the look and feel of the space.
A Menu Built Around Smørbrød And House Bread
The food lineup leans hard into dense Scandinavian-style breads, small pastries and smørbrød topped with things like beet-cured gravlax and pickled mushrooms. As reported by NOLA.com, sous-chef Charles Wheelock helps oversee the bread program, and much of the baking happens in-house. That kitchen-first approach gives the café the steady rhythm of a bakery instead of the fleeting feel of a one-off pop-up menu.
Small-Batch Roasting And A Family Farm
On the coffee side, the roastery focuses on lighter, origin-forward roasts and uses compact equipment to keep production small, fresh and tightly controlled. In an interview with Daily Coffee News, Rabasa, who trained at the Culinary Institute of America and spent years in professional kitchens, explained that the Project Pijao coffees come from his family’s El Tesorito farm in Pijao, Colombia. Applied Arts splits its time between retail bags, wholesale accounts and regular market appearances, while continuing to experiment with coffee production at the farm level.
Wholesale, Markets And Where To Find It
Applied Arts’ beans have been popping up around the city, showing up at farmers markets and in a handful of restaurants. Market Umbrella, which operates the Crescent City Farmers Markets, has featured Applied Arts as a vendor, and NOLA.com notes that the roastery sells both wholesale and retail and has been carried by neighborhood spots. For anyone looking to bring a bag home, the café’s website lists local pickup and delivery options along with upcoming market dates…