(EditorӪs note: Sometimes youӪre not looking for a whole meal but a soup̤on, a smidgeon, a cuppa, a place to consort with your laptop or a friend for a time. Recently, Westfair senior food and travel writer Jeremy Wayne sampled a few such spots in our area and found that they are thinking and acting globally as well as locally: )
The Pamplemousse Project, White Plains
“Coffee for the Community,” announces a mural on the white brick wall of the extravagantly-named Pamplemousse Project, the recently opened café on Mamaroneck Avenue. It”™s a welcome addition to a part of the avenue that can, at least on a wet, windy day, feel slightly forlorn, and where there has long been a dearth of places to get a decent cup of coffee in a genial setting. The café”™s owners, Lydia and Gary Kris, are successful businesspeople and longtime White Plains residents who opened the café not as a nonprofit but as a for-profit whose proceeds are donated to local causes. Their aim is to support a city that they said has been so important to their family over the years. (The name, Pamplemousse, incidentally, which is French for “grapefruit,” is also the name of their mixed-breed shelter rescue dog. Both Pamplemousses, said the Krises, have been challenging.)
OK, philanthropy is all well and good, but how”™s the coffee, you ask? Well, they brew an excellent cup, using high-quality, ethically sourced beans from Colombia and Guatemala, which they also sell under their own label. “Our goal is to help educate our customers to elevate their coffee experience,” added the Krises, and yes, the baristas are clued-in and professional. As for edibles, they do a small selection of baked goods, bought in from “leading New York bakeries.” People are also starting to talk about their gourmet chocolate truffles, manufactured by a small company in Vermont and tantalizingly on display in a large, glass showcase. There”™s also a bulk candy wall, with chocolate covered almonds, taffy, gummy bears and much more besides.
With its relaxing vibe, Pamplemousse is a good spot to while away an hour or so with a friend or perhaps alone, reading or working on your laptop. It may not exactly be a grapefruit, but it”™s certainly no lemon.
Laughing Horse Coffee & Tea Co., Harrison
Another community-minded couple, Mike and Ali Nazzaro, have opened this bright and cheery caf̩, which will be celebrating its first birthday in April. Laughing Horse not only serves an excellent cup of coffee but offers a great selection of baked goods, too, including buns, scones, croissants and muffins, delivered daily from the Balthazar Bakery in Manhattan. (The blueberry muffin, dense yet somehow light and deliciously moist, was far and away the best of the six different muffins I sampled for this piece). ThereӪs a good choice of gluten-free baked goods and pastries, too.
With its blond wood floors, white walls, comfortable chairs and deep-buttoned Chesterfield sofa, the laid-back café offers a nice sense of place, where you can happily spend an hour or two. The white subway tiles behind the counter keep it workmanlike, but there is a touch of history and romance as well in the random ephemera ”“ including an old boot repairer”™s sign, a receipt for coffee from a wholesaler from the 1890s and a photograph, dated 1916, of the Simon & Shea blacksmith shop, which stood on this same site, all adding to the local vibe.
The music is mellow as the Nazarros are actually music industry veterans, so early morning it might be a country vibe, (“Stuck on You” seemed stuck on the loop the morning I visited), amping up as the day wears on. With a loyal local following ”“ many of the residents of Harrison”™s Playhouse Lofts, whose ground floor the café occupies, come in for coffee as an alternative to making it in their own kitchen, I suspect ”“ there”™s also a strong sense of neighborliness, reinforced by a community board with flyers and old-fashioned, handwritten notices advertising services offered or items for sale.
Their goal and motivation, said the Nazzaros, was to “build a place to be social and “Sip Local,” a directive that is also displayed as a figure of eight on the café wall. That “sipping” could be wine or craft beer, too: The café has a small selection of both.
The Roaster Café Bistro, Mamaroneck
The Turkish-flavored Roaster Café Bistro, one of whose co-owners lives in Port Chester, opened in 2018. Although primarily a coffee joint ”“ it does a good espresso and cappuccino and a fine Turkish latte ”“ it has a huge variety of food, everything from eggy breakfasts, (Turkish eggs with soujouk, a spicy fermented sausage, is apparently a big breakfast seller), to fish and meat entrées and cream-heavy cakes. For my own breakfast, while I found the cranberry muffin a little dry, I thoroughly enjoyed the café”™s freshly made simit, a Turkish bagel that I ordered with cream-cheese. There are also imported groceries for sale, including eggplant purée, stuffed grape leaves, pomegranate molasses and cold-pressed Greek olive oil.
Inside, the look is rustic and the café is pleasantly crowded. I particularly like the industrial ducting wrapped in old coffee-bean sacks and the neon sign with arrows pointing towards a wine glass, exhorting you to “Love Wine.” A single, solitary picture shows an Istanbul tram, while scenes of a misty, Turkish landscape are relayed on a wide screen. Outside, on the sidewalk, for-sale items like Turkish baklava and handmade wooden cups and bowls are laid out on tables. But by far the most striking things you”™ll see at the Roaster right now are the homemade collection boxes, with touchingly hand-written signs asking for donations for victims of the Turkish / Syrian earthquake. There could scarcely be a more sensitive or genuine appeal for help, nor a better cause to which you could contribute while enjoying your daily coffee fix.
For more, visit thepamplemousseproject.com; thelaughinghorsecoffee.com; theroastercafe.com.
