Masseria Caffè

Italian espresso and a bakery case

The premise is a straightforward Italian daytime café: fine Italian coffee and authentic Italian baked goods, in that order. Espresso, cappuccino and latte are the natural way to approach the counter, and the pastry side is bakery-led rather than dessert-led, with croissants and Italian baked goods filling the case. The rhythm is Italian too: a quick espresso standing at the counter, or a longer sit with a pastry.

Recognition from Gambero Rosso, the Italian food and wine authority, is the strongest quality signal the café carries, and it is earned on that format rather than on named roasters or single-origin lots. The Midtown branch is styled Masseria Caffé & Bakery, which is an accurate account of both rooms: coffee at the front, baking behind it.

Two branches, both daytime

The Hell's Kitchen café opened in November 2022, and a sister branch serves Midtown near Broadway and the Theater District. Both are casual and daytime-oriented, serving breakfast, coffee, baked goods and light meals rather than a dinner service, and both fill and empty with the neighborhood around them.

The Hell's Kitchen room sits just north of Masseria Dei Vini, a Southern Italian restaurant known for food from Puglia and Naples, which makes the café part of a broader Italian presence on that stretch. Columbus Circle and the entertainment venues are close, so the crowd mixes theater-goers, visitors, office workers and regulars. Indoor tables and free Wi-Fi make it workable for a longer sit, and weekend mornings and late Sunday afternoons are the busiest stretches.

Cappuccino and a croissant

Start with an Italian coffee and one baked good, which is the most faithful order here. A cappuccino in the morning or an espresso later, with a croissant from the case, covers what the café is built to do, and it is not a place that asks for any planning beyond that.

If you want more, treat it as a bakery rather than a restaurant and take a second Italian baked good instead of a plate. The pastry program is broad rather than itemized, so the case in front of you is the menu and it changes with the morning. That combination, an espresso drink and something from the Italian bakery side, is the whole idea, and it is why the room works for a ten-minute stop or an hour.