But first, restaurant (with coffee)
The other day, I bumped into a friend outside of Derby Cup Coffee, a new cafe in Chinatown with green racing stripes on its awning. She ordered a matcha lemonade, I sipped coconut water with a shot of espresso and we shared a Twinkie yellow blondie. The blueberries gleamed in the sun like sapphires. What wave of coffee are we in, again? All I know is the food is better than ever. Beyond baked goods, New York has been blessed with coffee shops that double as homes for South Indian idli, slept-on breakfast tacos and brunch banh mi. No need to wait until tomorrow morning to dig in. Surely, it’s 9 a.m. somewhere.
Early bird gets the bánh mì chảoOnly once have I seen someone leave Mắm, on Ligaya Mishan’s 100 best restaurants list, and look disappointed. It was this past weekend, when a group stood up from their low, plastic stools and stopped to admire our spread of eggs, breakfast meats and baguette with fish sauce caramel coffee. Who wouldn’t? We were at Phe, a very new coffee shop run out of the slim storefront next door to Mắm from the same owners. I’m sure there will be a food menu eventually. For now, take a seat wherever you fit and wait patiently until your bánh mì chảo — literally, bánh mì in sauté pan — arrives in dramatic waves. It starts with pickled vegetables, pâté and aioli, a translucent swirl of shallot oil and egg. This is a fine snack that the restaurant will replenish endlessly, free of charge, and pairs marvelously with the house baguette: light, demi-loaves that look like no other bread in the city. (They, too, are free and unlimited.) The climax is a smorgasbord of sliced hot dog, ham, onions and a sputtering over-easy egg crowded into a personal sauté pan. You could sit there all afternoon, assembling bites of meat, eggs, vegetables and bread to be washed down with fish sauce coffee. In fact, I recommend it. 72 Forsyth Street (Hester Street), Chinatown, Manhattan
Do you take your coffee black or green?The flour tortilla is on a generational run rivaled only by these New York Knicks. From pale, flavorless Frisbees, not much more interesting to look at than a ream of printer paper, to hand-rolled, lard-slicked tacos that form the nucleus of restaurant menus. I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about the tortillas at Olas Coffee Company, a wholesale coffee business Jeremiah Borrego started out of his Brooklyn apartment in 2018. In 2022, Mr. Borrego took over a shuttered cafe in Williamsburg and added breakfast tacos to the menu. He now sells hundreds of them each day: plush, Tempur-Pedic tortillas lined with scrambled egg, chorizo and refried beans. The coffee, from producers in Nicaragua, Colombia and Guatemala, is roasted in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, or otherwise turned into coffee kombucha. There’s also the fizzy, fermented drinks made with unroasted coffee husks — a byproduct of coffee production — a creation of Mr. Borrego. Mildly caffeinated, they activate the same receptors in the brain as a Starbucks Refresher. 495 Lorimer Street (Powers Street), Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Idli two waysSwetha and Venkat Raju, the owners of Brooklyn Curry Project, a farmers’ market dosa stand, were looking for a permanent home for their restaurant, when they came across a vacant cafe attached to a commercial kitchen in Downtown Brooklyn. The perfect place to broaden our understanding of Indian caffeine, Ms. Raju reasoned, “beyond tea.” The Rajus opened Filter Kaapi in the fall, specializing in filter coffee passed through an aluminum sieve and slightly diluted with sour chicory. (The beans are imported from India and guaranteed to keep you awake for two days.) It doesn’t get much better than a cup of kaapi and their steamed cafe fare, like idli sambar — chewy orbs of lentil, tapioca and rice — or thatte idli, a savory pancake served, wallowing, in coconut and tomato chutneys. 383 Bridge Street (Willoughby Street), Downtown Brooklyn Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have New York City restaurant questions? Send us a note here. Need to know where to eat across the United States? Check out our guides to Atlanta, Austin Boston, Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Portland, Ore., San Francisco and Seattle.
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