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“This is not a coffee shop,” says the sign written on the counter wall where the coffees are prepared at Caf\u00e9 Magr\u00ed<\/a>\u00a0in Belo Horizonte, a Brazilian city that boasts a deep tradition in coffee\u2014Minas Gerais, where the city is located, is one of the biggest Arabica-producing states in the nation.<\/p>\n The message on the wall is not arbitrary. Caf\u00e9 Magr\u00ed has taken this name in homage to the surrealist artist Ren\u00e9 Magritte, known for his juxtaposition of textual and visual signs. The cafe’s owners\u2014a couple consisting of a barista and a chef\u2014decided to open the doors of this venue to question their own business model, which they have been running since February: is this more a coffee shop or more a restaurant?<\/p>\n Mar\u00edlia Balzani and Rafael Brito found a gap in Belo Horizonte\u2019s food scene when they were thinking about what their business would look like. \u201cWhen there is great coffee, the food is never good enough and vice versa,\u201d says Balzani. \u201cIt has always been a hard task to find a place with really good food and also great coffee, so we decided to open a business that could have the best of both worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n Balzani and Brito. Photo by Ton Nettos.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The couple joined their skills to create a new concept\u2014indeed a missing one\u2014in the city. From the union of their specialties, Magr\u00ed was born as a mixture of cafe and coffee shop, as she explains, serving from a variety of coffee methods (such as V60<\/a>, AeroPress<\/a>, and many others) and a broad diversity of food. Balzani used to work at coffee farms and also in some of the city\u2019s coffee shops while Brito was part of the kitchen staff of some of the best restaurants in Minas Gerais\u2019 capital.<\/p>\n At his small kitchen, Brito prepares some dishes that run away from the snack foods usually served in coffee shops. More than p\u00e3o de queijo<\/em> (cheese bread made from cassava) or pieces of cake, he has created sandwiches, salads, and other dishes with a chef’s approach so the customer can “go beyond in their choices,” as he says. In addition to brunch on weekends, Magr\u00ed offers lighter lunch options as well as bites that can be consumed all day.<\/p>\n Photo by Juliana Felix<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It took the couple a year to open Magr\u00ed: during that time, Brito dedicated himself to creating and testing recipes, while Balzani went in search of their coffee. Drawing on her background, she zeroed in on the region of Mata de Minas, the home of coffees she’d fallen in love with when she participated in the Brazilian AeroPress Championship there last year and visited farms and producers. In partnership with a local roaster, Roast<\/a>, she oversees the entire roasting process to ensure the best coffee comes to Magr\u00ed.<\/p>\n \u201cAt first I had thought of doing the roasting myself, but I didn\u2019t think I could devote so much time to it with the opening\u2014and also we would not have room for a roasting machine. So I’ve partnered with Roast and they’ve been great partners, since they let me follow up the whole roasting process, helping to create roast profiles, etc,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n In addition to the convenience of sourcing coffee from Mata de Minas, Balzani was drawn to the diversity of flavor profiles coming out of the region, allowing them to offer variety to their clientele. \u201cWe are serving beans from four completely different producers, which range from those with higher acidity to more balanced ones,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n What’s more, Magr\u00ed is close enough to its source farms that occasionally the producers come visit the coffee shop.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are near, so it’s been a great exchange when they come. Our goal is not only to work closely with our customers, but also with our producers. Everything we serve here is either homemade or bought from small local producers,\u201d Balzani points out. \u201cSo we can transform a little what is around us, our environment,” she concludes. A coffee shop is never just a coffee shop, as Magritte would say.<\/p>\n![\"cafe](\"http:\/\/sprudge.com\/file\/2018\/10\/Cafe-Magri-Owners-Credit-Ton-Nettos-1170x775.jpg\")
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<\/p>\nCaf\u00e9 Magr\u00ed is located at\u00a0