A black coffee, strong and without sugar or barely sweetened, as served in bourgeois interiors and literary cafés of 19th-century Paris. Robust, bitter, made to keep the working mind awake.

Why this dish? Hugo wrote standing, very early in the morning and late into the night, sustained by strong black coffee. This drink accompanied his discipline as a literary galley slave — the man who blackened thousands of pages of Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

Approach, and fear not bitterness: it is she who awakens the soul. When the city sleeps and the candle flickers, I stand before my desk, and this black brew is my sole companion. One wants it dark as ink, burning, barely softened by a grain of sugar — for sugar is for children, and the night is for works. Drink it, and you will see the day dawn upon a finished page.

How it was made : In the 19th century, coffee was often prepared using a ‘cafetière de Belloy’ (a drip coffee maker, ancestor of our gentle methods) or by decoction. Coffee had become a Parisian institution: literary cafés buzzed with writers, journalists, and political debates. Initially a costly colonial beverage, it had become widespread among the bourgeoisie.

The contemporary twist : Serve it in a small cup placed on a reproduced handwritten page — a nod to the literary galley slave who fueled himself with ink and coffee.

Victor Hugo · Charactorium