Cognoscenti Coffee Roasters

Yeekai Lim, a former architect who worked with Frank Gehry, started Cognoscenti as a coffee cart in 2009 before opening this Culver City room in 2011. The company calls itself the first pop up specialty coffee bar in Los Angeles, and Lim also designed the coffee bars at Endorffeine and Copa Vida before founding his own brand.

Cognoscenti roasts in Los Angeles and builds its list around long relationships with producers, among them a Peruvian farmer in Cajamarca who has worked with the roastery since the earliest days of its Peru project, and Colombian microlots from Huila and Cauca. Guest roasters such as Heart Coffee and Take Flight have also poured at the bar. Another cafe has since opened in the Fashion District of Downtown, and this Washington Boulevard room sits in the Culver City Arts District.