Café Éclair

Café Éclair doubles as a café and a tightly curated micro-bookshop in the Mile End. The space is designed to collapse distance between barista and customer, reader and shelf, all anchored by a central island where coffee is ground and pulled in full view and surrounded by books rather than merchandise clutter. The library side follows a rotating, theme-based approach, favouring bilingual fiction, essays, poetry, zines, art publications, and children’s books over obvious bestsellers—a lot of light-handed literary programming. Coffee is treated with equal seriousness, sourcing from respected international roasters and paired with well-chosen viennoiseries. Calm without being sleepy, cerebral without being precious.