Defacto Café & Atelier sits on rue Saint-Denis in the Plateau, in a room whose ground floor folds open onto a terrace in good weather. The name plays on the Latin, the argument being that a good coffee is de facto. Beans come from Zab, the Montreal roaster, and the counter turns out espresso drinks, matcha and chai alongside viennoiseries and pastries. The cortado is the order regulars have settled on. Downstairs there is a quieter floor set up for laptops, which accounts for a good share of the daytime crowd. The atelier half of the name is the second function: the owners run the space for collaboration and cultural programming as well as coffee, with the schedule changing through the year.