It’s difficult to single out and favour one over the other when it comes to coffee. Espresso, cappuccino or the various lattes, or perhaps the simple iced coffee, coffee is an indulgence to many, no matter what. With flavoured options also being added to coffee menus, coffees are becoming an increasingly sophisticated affair.

After some consideration, we went on a quest for the perfect café latte, described to be the somewhat sweeter, larger and less ‘foamier’ version of cappuccino. Of course, perfecting a latte altogether is a complicated and meticulous task, as anyone who has tried preparing it will be able to tell you!

This has almost made café latte something to be had at restaurants alone and it’s not expectable that restaurants take enough time and caution to prepare the perfect café latte to every customer who orders it.

Also considering the fact that each restaurant might have slight differences in method of preparation, as long it tasted sufficiently good enough, the latte passed our test. All restaurants below serve the coffee both hot and chill. All of them also served a pretty decent café latte and there’s little to complain overall this week. It was a bit disheartening though to not see any latte art (desirably the ‘rosetta’ with tulip and hearts!) on any of the café latte….   

Coco Veranda was our pick this week! Although a bit pricey, the hazelnut flavoured café latte we tried really made our hunt all afternoon a delight. Mainly so, because it tasted distinguishingly better than the rest.

Nevertheless, the most important ingredient to a perfect Latte being the espresso and a good espresso costing more, the higher price and superb taste are adequately explained. Moving down the ranking, Barista also serves a great one.  If you know other coffee houses that sell good café lattes, let us know!  

	Hot Café Latte (Tall)   Java Lounge Cotton Collection, Dharmapala Mawatha
Taste	* * *
Price	Rs. 320
Value for Money	Average

	Iced Latte (Regular)   The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Maitland Crescent, Colombo 7
Taste	* * * *
Price	Rs. 420
Value for Money	Average

	Iced Latte (Regular) Barista Horton Place, Colombo 7
Taste	* * * * *
Price	Rs. 380
Value for Money	High

	Hot hazelnut flavoured café latte (regular)   Coco Veranda Ward Place, Colombo 7
Taste	* * * * *
Price	Rs. 540
Value for Money	High

	Hot almond flavoured café latte   Delifrance Odel, Alexandra Place, Colombo 7
Taste	* * * *
Price	Rs. 378
Value for Money	High

My Pick: Coco Veranda

If the restaurant has a chain of outlets, the rating here is specific to the mentioned outlet. V Try – U Buy is not a connoisseur’s report, but is designed for the common man’s benefit.

By Nivedha Jeyaseelan & Sapthika Jacob