hamlet coffee company

Order a cortado and a slice of marble cake and you have the measure of the place. Hamlet Coffee Company is a Brooklyn daytime café built on espresso drinks and creative baked goods, with a minimalist room, a courtyard out back and a queue that moves fast.

A concise coffee bar

The drink list is short rather than encyclopedic: cortado, latte, dirty chai latte and hot chocolate cover most of what leaves the bar. The coffee is Colombian, and the café describes its own supply as farm to coffee shop.

Navigate by style. The cortado is the small, milk-tightened espresso; the latte is the longer milk drink; the dirty chai latte is the one to order when the spice should be as loud as the coffee. Hot chocolate covers the non-coffee option, and the bar keeps the whole list short enough that nothing on it feels like an afterthought. Service is quick and friendly, which is what keeps a small bar workable when the room fills.

A room built for an hour of work

The space is small and simple but not one-note: a three-seat window counter, a couch, tables at the back, and a patio courtyard outside. That gives four different ways to use the same café, from a five-minute stop to a longer sit.

It works as a neighbourhood third place. The Wi-Fi is free for customers, the room stays quiet with laid-back music, and it is clean enough to settle into. People come to work for a stretch, to meet someone briefly, or to sit outside with a pastry, and none of those uses crowds out the others.

Start with the cortado and the marble cake

Marble cake is the most specific sweet in the case and the natural partner to a cortado. The pastry case is central to the café rather than an afterthought beside the machine, so it is worth looking before ordering.

For a softer, larger drink the latte is the straightforward choice, and the dirty chai latte is the pick for spice with the coffee. On the savoury side the named item is a bacon, potato, egg and cheese taco, which turns a coffee stop into breakfast. Between the cakes, the pastries and that one taco, the range is small and useful: enough for a morning, not so much that the coffee stops being the point.