Brown Cafe 61 Hester St.
(between Essex and Ludlow),
Manhattan 212-254-9825 Everybody knows New Yorkers
take their coffee seriously. So when the free daily
metro newspaper AM NewYork deemed the java at Brown Café
to be the city’s best, we had to wonder: Could it be? We
asked the Review Crew to stop in for a cup. You
rate it!
This quaint hole-in-the-wall
cafe is definitely giving Starbucks a run for its money.
The brown wood decor makes it a warm and friendly
environment, and the caffeine they serve up is
definitely worth the trip to the outskirts of Chinatown.
They use a pretty good high-quality commercial coffee
and it’s not too overpowering or sweet. Brown’s food
looked appealing as well.
I’m not some caffeine junkie.
In fact, I’m still recovering from my Jolt gum review. I
see coffee as a warm beverage to complement a delectable
baked good, or simply a pacer to add in the delivery of
a hardy conversation. It’s not just the bean that makes
for a good cup of joe, but also the atmosphere
surrounding it. Brown is hidden off the beaten path, but
it’s still quite welcoming. Escape to this charming
spot, have some flavorful coffee and make some new
friends.
As a strictly social coffee
drinker, I wasn’t expecting Brown’s coffee to stand out
among the countless other coffees of Manhattan, and I
was right. The coffee was undeniably good, but it was
indistinguishable from its competitors’. With a location
far less convenient than your neighborhood Starbucks,
Brown just isn’t worth the trouble.
The coffee is fantastic. It’s
exceptionally rich and tasty. I found the food to be
equally satisfying and the service quite accommodating,
especially considering how near I arrived to closing
time. But who wants to enjoy their coffee on bulky
wooden benches while watching the paint peel off the
walls? I wouldn’t mind stopping by Brown again, but next
time I’ll take my beverage to go.
