Shemroon Café is first and foremost a full-service café with all the familiar menu items – but it has also an international touch with such offerings as Turkish coffee (flavored with cardamom), Persian tea and the Middle Eastern classic dessert baklava.
Though Shemroon is a Persian name, and the new café in Theatre Square serves Turkish coffee, owner Aydin Ameli wants to make it clear his new Orinda café will cater to all kinds of customers.
The menu features pastries, cookies, small sandwiches and breakfasts, and has plenty of familiar favorites – though the curious will be eager to sample some of Shemroon’s more exotic offerings.
Turkish coffee, for example, is “very thick and strong,” said Ameli, but at Shemroon, they add some cardamom to mellow out the flavor a bit. “It’s a special coffee.”
Persian tea is also on the menu, a “black tea with rose water,” and since Ameli and his wife Shabnam, the chef, are from Persia, they take pride in getting it just right.
And yes, you can find baklava on the menu as well, with its flaky pastry and combination of sweet and nutty.
“We were looking for a place in the East Bay,” said Ameli, but hadn’t really thought about Orinda until they met some friends in town. And when he saw an opening in Theatre Square, it didn’t take long for him to take the plunge.
“We love Orinda,” he said, and Shemroon has been serving customers its specialties, both caffeinated and otherwise, since just before Halloween.
And though people may want to link Shemroon with Turkish coffee and Persian tea, Ameli emphasized one thing, “We are a café,” he said, “not a coffee shop.”
