You wouldn’t know it by looking at the comfort-food menu chirpily handwritten in five or six different shades of ink, but Fuller has as impressive a fine-dining résumé as any you’re likely to come across. There’s yellow wallpaper with a cherry-blossom motif on one side and a forest-themed tapestry on the other, and a mix of soul, rhythm and blues, and classic rock playing at a volume loud enough to induce a sigh of nostalgia but low enough not to drown out conversation.
#Madcap cafe nyc windows
It does have its chef-owner’s charm and drive and a small staff that radiates warmth throughout the wide, shallow dining room, which is furnished simply with a bar, a slatted-wood banquette, and a row of metal stools lining a ledge where curtained windows look out onto Court Street. The restaurant has no “concept” (as Fuller’s husband, a food and beverage consultant, keeps pointing out to her), no “visual identity,” no logo, only the most discreet of exterior signage, and, at press time, no website. But it’s such an anomaly in the category it doesn’t even call itself one. daily, Madcap is as all-day as cafés come. Considering that its doors are open from 8 a.m. It is in this refreshing and somewhat antiquated spirit that Heather Fuller opened Madcap Cafe several weeks ago on a Carroll Gardens corner that loudly and somewhat confusingly advertises in one great cluster the presence of every adjoining business (a Pilates studio, a gym, a dentist’s office, a real-estate agency, the Scotto funeral home) in addition to her own. Customers tended to become very attached to these places of business and the people who worked there and use them as their home away from home, rather than today’s office away from office. These places were known to serve coffee in the morning, alcohol later on, and food whenever thirst or appetite demanded, but they didn’t make a production out of it. There was a time, not so long ago, before the “all-day café” and its carefully honed, millennial-friendly brand identity dwarfed the dining scene, when establishments like coffee shops, luncheonettes, and diners dotted the land. Two are of particular note, both true icons of Manhattan: Pietro’s – a little-known but remarkable vestige of old New York – and Mimi’s, the ultimate dysfunctional madcap bar with solid Italian-American food (you go for the food and stay for the midnight piano bar magic).Madcap Cafe’s veggie “nachos” are essentially crudités, but about ten times better and more efficient. Get the matzoh ball soup (and perhaps a black and white cookie to go) before making your way to Carl Schurz Park on the East River.įrom there you can walk all the way down the East Side riverway – a beautiful route that allows you to see the entire panoply of the city in one go, and either follow it all the way to Chinatown for dim sum, or stop by a few dinner spots on the way in Midtown. For something more substantial, make your way to Yorkville and stop by a true local gem: The Mansion, a super-old diner that services everyone in the area including the mayor of New York, who lives in Gracie Mansion just down the block. Regardless of whether you have just skipped through 5000 years of art or took a crash course in the city’s history, you will have worked up an appetite, so head to Sarge’s of Murray Hill, a Jewish delicatessen that, in a city of great sandwich places, stands out for its phenomenal pastrami sandwich.
Alternatively, and further from the beaten track, is the Museum of the City of New York, which documents the city’s evolution from a village of Europeans, Africans and Native Americans into the global metropolis. Heading to a museum straight after breakfast can be a great way to get ahead of the crowds and though you’ll still have to fight your way through some early-rising tourists, the permanent exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is unrivalled. Make sure you try the herring and lox, which they are particularly well known for.
Over the decades Tea and Sympathy has become a bona fide NYC institution, but there’s also the option to go for something classically New York at Barney Greengrass, the ultimate Upper West Side delicatessen and ‘appetizing shop’ (selling food eaten with bagels).
But to emulate a typical New Yorker’s weekend, or a rare day off, take your time and head down to the legendary Tea and Sympathy between West Village and Greenwich Village – a tiny English cottage that serves top-notch bangers and mash fare. Most New Yorkers are too busy for breakfast and either pick up something from the food carts that sit on almost every street corner or subsist on coffee until lunch.
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