Relax at Tilde, North Cambridge’s New Café and Wine Bar

Tilde serves Broadsheet coffee and Butternut Bakehouse pastries. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

Grab a pot of tea or a glass of wine, perhaps alongside a book, a board game, or your latest knitting project: Tilde welcomes you to stay a while. The new North Cambridge business is part of Greater Boston’s next wave of café-by-day, wine-bar-by-night spots (see also: the recently opened Jadu, a Jamaica Plain café with plans to add wine bar service soon). With a focus on hyperlocal partnerships, Tilde owners Max Stein and Katie O’Hara—friends who met while working in coffee—aim to build a community-oriented space, with the throughlines between coffee and wine as the foundation.

“Coffee and wine are more similar than people realize, and we’re trying to bring that together,” says Stein, who’s worked in coffee for years, including locally at Broadsheet and George Howell (where he met O’Hara). “They’re both commodity products; you can buy them for super cheap. But to do that, you kind of have to ignore all the work that goes into it—what makes each cup or bottle or glass special.” In forming close partnerships with local producers and other thoughtfully chosen small businesses, the duo hopes to provide a place for less commodity, more connection.

Tilde. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

By day, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., that means café beverages highlighting coffee from Broadsheet in Cambridge and tea from Broken Cup Teahouse (Cambridge) and Virgo’s Room (Somerville); hot chocolate and a variety of syrups are made in-house. Pastries come from Butternut Bakehouse in Arlington, and there’ll be a few more food options soon. Tilde’s Massachusetts Avenue space was previously home to an Ethiopian restaurant, so there’s a full kitchen the team’s planning to use. One idea: breakfast hash. “We think a diner breakfast is something everyone’s been itching for around here,” says O’Hara. “That goes hand-in-hand with the slowness of Tilde—we want people to be able to sit down and enjoy, not feel so rushed. Coffee can get transactional, part of people’s routines, but we’re really happy when people come and post up with a book and sit for a few hours.”

Tilde. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

When daily wine bar hours kick in at 5 p.m., an all-domestic wine list takes center stage (including selections as local as Marzae in Acton). “We thought the best way to incorporate the locality of the Tilde ethos is [to serve] all American wines,” says O’Hara, who worked with wine at American Provisions and its sibling bar Gray’s Hall. “All natural wines, small producers. We’re trying to bring this approachability to natural wine—and specialty coffee—because sometimes the language used around these things can feel so intimidating.”

She’s particularly excited to showcase bottles from newer producers. “A lot of these winemakers are young, got their start around COVID,” says O’Hara. “They wanted to work for themselves and do something less serious, less fussy. I love to support that because they’re up against the big dogs—generations of family-owned vineyards in France and Spain.”

Tilde. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

With their experience working in coffee shops, Stein and O’Hara have noticed that people get upset that so many cafés close early, so they serve an abbreviated tea and coffee selection at night, too. (Don’t miss O’Hara’s favorite Tilde coffee drink, the espresso tonic, which will be on the menu year-round, jazzed up with a seasonal syrup—currently sage, juniper berry, and ginger.) “Some people come in here [in the evening] and post up with their boardgames and a pot of tea, and it’s so cute,” says O’Hara. “This is what we imagined! It’s cool to see it come to fruition.”

Tilde—café by day and wine bar by night. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

There’s also mulled wine for the winter; one beer—a rotating local selection, currently from Idle Hands in Malden; a couple ciders; and a handful of nonalcoholic options like an apéritif by Ghia. And to eat, there are wine bar essentials: little snacks like mixed nuts and popcorn; cheese and charcuterie plates; a few desserts. (Rotating flavors of Somerville-based Gracie’s Ice Cream are available in an affogato, for example.) Stein’s been working on some soups for the colder months, too.

The team has no plans to introduce a more permanent type of dinner service, but they do hope to bring in guest chefs for pop-ups. “We want to try and get more members of our community in here,” says O’Hara, “and let them leave their mark on the space.”

Tilde. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

That’s really what it’s about for Stein and O’Hara—supporting the community. That comes in a variety of forms: telling the story of local producers they’ve become close with over the years, providing space for chef friends to come in and cook, showcasing local art, letting staff members play a role in menu development and other endeavors, giving locals a place to gather over a glass of wine and a Scrabble board.

“This was a really fun dream for us to do together,” says O’Hara. “But it’s not just for us.”

Tilde. / Photo by Rachel Leah Blumenthal

2376 Massachusetts Ave., North Cambridge, tildecambridge.com.

A version of this story appeared in the print edition of the March 2025 issue with the headline, “Double Pour.”