Café Saint-Henri and Breville: The Boutique Reinventing the Art of Coffee

In December 2025, Café Saint-Henri and Breville unveiled a brand-new coffee experience — something truly unique in the world: a partnership between a micro-roaster and a brand that produces espresso machines for the home. At their Mile-Ex location, Café Saint-Henri now hosts a Breville boutique and workshop. Learn more through our conversation with Vincent Patrizi, Vice-President of Marketing at Café Saint-Henri and Origine 117, the company behind the micro-roaster.

A One-of-a-Kind Partnership

The alliance between Café Saint-Henri and Breville didn’t happen overnight. The ties between the two companies had been forming for some time: at a Breville demonstration I attended at Best Buy in May 2025, it was a barista from the Montréal group who was working behind the Australian brand’s machines. Then, at the opening of the Aspire Amex Lounge at YUL, Sébastien Grenache, President of Origine 117 and Café Saint-Henri, confided that Breville machines were, in his view, the best for everyday coffee at home — and this was before I even knew about the new Lab Café with Breville.

Speaking of airports, in addition to supplying an exclusive blend to the Aspire Amex Lounge at YUL, the company has also been the official coffee partner of Canadian carrier Porter Airlines since early 2026.

For readers outside Canada, it’s worth noting that La Baie — the century-old department store chain and a major Breville retailer — closed its doors in 2025, leaving consumers with one fewer place to discover and shop for their favourite machines. That gap makes the Lab all the more relevant.

A Space to Learn and to Shop

The Café Saint-Henri and Breville Lab is a space designed to foster sharing, discovery, and growth. Its purpose is to serve as a place to explore Breville products and develop coffee knowledge. Visitors are invited to taste, explore, compare, and deepen their understanding of coffee through highly sought-after workshops (no spots were available at the time of writing), barista-led demonstrations, and much more.

These workshops are completely free and currently offered in three formats: Espresso 101, Latte Art 101, and Pour Over 101. The latter has more availability than the other two — a clear reflection of Montréal’s growing espresso culture.

Step inside and two distinct worlds reveal themselves, side by side. The Lab Café, all matte black and raw concrete with its demonstration islands, sits alongside the Saint-Henri Micro-Torréfacteur space, warmer in tone with its beige walls — two environments that coexist beautifully, sitting at opposite ends of the colour spectrum.

The wall panels are well worth a look: on the left, an infographic tracing the coffee chain from origin to roasting; on the right, a brewing guide with ratios (espresso 1:2, long 1:14, and so on) and beverage types. It’s permanent educational content, not reserved for workshop days alone.

Breville organizes its lineup into three clearly defined levels of mastery: Personal Mastery (I do it myself), Assisted Mastery (help me do it), and Instant Mastery (do it for me) — a framework that makes it genuinely easy to find the machine that matches where you are in your coffee journey.

The full Breville lineup is available in-store (and online), and you’re welcome to try any of them. Automatic, semi-automatic, or manual — there’s a machine for every profile, accessories included. From the ever-popular Barista Express to the pinnacle of the range, the Oracle Dual Boiler, the choice is yours.

The staff are not only knowledgeable about the machines — they are baristas who make coffee every single day. These are people who truly know their craft, and they’ll guide you toward the right machine for your needs. It’s the kind of coffee expertise you rarely find at a big-box retailer, where staff often have little hands-on experience with the products they sell.

On the question of price, Breville machines are the same cost everywhere — the company sets the retail price. Any promotions in effect apply both in-store and online, with delivery handled directly by Breville.

Breville, at Gentologie too.

I recently acquired the Breville Bambino — a compact and thoroughly enjoyable machine with which I’ve been honing my coffee skills, and I genuinely love it. It gives you the freedom to choose your coffee according to your own taste, and the experience is a world apart from the capsule machine I used before. Not to mention the ability to make microfoam and try your hand at latte art. It’s a wonderful entry point — before, perhaps, moving on to the next step.

The Lab Café Saint-Henri × Breville is located at 7335 Mile-End Street, Montréal. Workshops are free and by reservation.

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