Beyond Manhattan BlogBlue Bottle Coffee
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160 Berry St (between 6th St & 5th St)
Among the first of the so-called “third wave” coffee shops to hit New York, Blue Bottle is still the standard-bearer. New Yorkers weaned on bodega coffee and Dunkin D’s may poo-poo it, but they can stay in Manhattan. (And out of Chelsea, since the San Francisco chain has now expanded there.) We don’t review dive bars either. If you want self-flagellation, read somebody’s else’s blog. But then, you’re probably not coming to New York to punish yourself.
Enough foreplay – anyway Blue Bottle is so good it’s worth the trip across the river. (I find myself writing this more and more, because a lot of the joints we review are that good.) The cone-drip method has a number of imitators, most of them vastly preferable to Starbucks (sorry), but no equals. If you’ve experienced third-wave before, Blue Bottle will be a slight upgrade. If you’re used to diner coffee, prepare to have your mind blown, and discover parts of your tongue you didn’t know existed. (Also, leave a good five or six hours to wind down.)
Cold-brewed iced-coffee has become almost a cliche in the outer boros (that’s right – it’s harder to get good coffee in manhattan than in the outer boros), but nobody’s quite gotten Blue Bottle’s number. (Oslo is a lower-octane alternative that’s almost equally delicious, though.) The Kyoto style iced coffee is put through a contraption more closely resembling one of John Jamison’s whiskey stills than anything you thought you’d use to make coffee, but the result is a completely non-acidic reduction that tickles the tongue with sweetness, backs it up with earthiness, and packs a caffeine punch.
Be prepared to stand in line here if you come on the weekend. (Wooooo did this ever piss off the old-guard critics, even though the wait time at absolute peak hours is comparable to that of your average Manhattan Starbucks.) Come on a weekday, however, and you’ll likely breeze through.
True, this is pricier than a mediocre cup, but if you wanted average you would have stayed at home.
How to Get There
Blue Bottle is a quick three-minute jaunt from the Bedford Avenue L train stop, and just around the corner from North 6th Street, the “Soho of Brooklyn”.
