When one of Midtown Manhattanโs mid-century gemsย adds great coffee to an already-lauded bar program,ย you listen.
Launched earlier this year, Flora Coffeeย sits inside the Breuer Building, the โ60s brutalist inverted pyramid that once housedย the Whitney Museum of American Art and is now the home of the Met Breuer. The cafeย adds morning service to Flora Bar, the acclaimed new bar and dining space fromย Estelaย and Cafรฉ Altro Paradiso founders Thomas Carter and Ignacio Mattos.
Coffee director Jess Che tapped Brooklyn roaster Parlor Coffee to fuel the program, and pastry chef Natasha Pickowicz (formerly of Marlow & Sons and Montrealโs Lawrence) to provide the treats. To Che, the lineupย brings a bit of a, well, cooler vibe to Madison Avenue.
โWhen we first moved uptown from Estela and Altro, we were all coming from primarily a โdowntownโย background, whether from the coffee, food, bar, or service side of things,โ says Che. โIn some ways, this couldย have been considered a gamble, but there is also something analogous and freeing about being a part of the Met Breuerโs opening year, in that we all were introducing something new and contemporary into the space.โ
Che was already familiar with Parlor and In Pursuit of Tea from Estela and Altro (the latter of which is now offering a morning coffee service as well), and says she saw the daytime program at Flora as an opportunity to showcase coffees and teas โthat might be stylistically new to an Upper East Side palate or a museum-going tourist.โ
Alongside Flora Coffeeโs espresso and filter offerings, made with Parlorโs Latin American blend named for the Brooklyn enclave Wallabout, is a selection of inventive baked goods both savory and sweet.
Pickowiczโs roster of pairable pastries includes a gianduja chocolate chip cookie, bacon gougรจres, walnut shortbread, and one big mother of a sticky bun.
The latter is a particularly inspired pastry thatโs a little left of center, says Che. In a way that makes perfect sense with the spaceโs coffeeโand the art.
โEveryone knows what a sticky bun is; theyโre recognizable and comforting, but [Pickowiczโs]ย are subtle and unique in flavor, not overly sweet,โ says Che. โItโs not always necessary to be hit over the head, and likewise, thereโs more to museum coffee than a shot of caffeine. Our intention was to create a cafe experience that could live alongside the museum-going experience.โ
And what an experience it is, sunken just below street level in an Upper East Side oasis of mid-century lines and curves. Although by lunchtime the sleek space becomes the terrain of gallery break-takers and sandwich-seekers, midmorning at Flora is a serene, and semi-secret, coffee hangout. Thereโs even WiFi.
โIโd personally love to encourage neighborhood folks to utilize the space,โ says Che, who notes that one can simply tell the museum staff theyโre headed right downstairs to the cafe and bar.
โIf I didnโt work here, Iโd be parked on that banquette for hours with a book.โ
Liz Clayton is the associate editor at Sprudge, and the co-author ofย Where To Drink Coffee, due this summer on Phaidon Press.ย Read more Liz Clayton on Sprudge.