La Masseria Restaurant Group, comprised of partners Peppe Iuele, Enzo Ruggiero, and father and son team Pino and Vito Coladonato, is expanding the Masseria brand and bringing a traditional Italian café to Hell’s Kitchen. The new café will serve traditional Italian pastries made fresh daily featuring the best sellers of La Masseria restaurant’s dessert section, espresso drinks, cold brew, and nitro brew coffee, as well as a small menu of paninis, focaccia, pizza, and salads.
The space was designed by Libby Langdon, who transformed the former beauty salon into a warm and inviting cafe with high ceilings, blue floral Italian tile floors, large glass display cases, and walls adorned with black and white photographs of the Italian countryside and artistic shots of coffee latte art. Everything was custom designed in Italy, including the ovens, the stainless-steel coffee counter, as well as the shelving. There is also a small shop of imported artisanal Italian products, all hand-selected by the owners, including Masseria group’s branded olive oil, and homemade grissini and biscotti.
Traditional Italian pastries include Occhi di Bue, an Italian sandwich filled with raspberry, apricot, or Nutella; Cornetto, while often compared to a croissant, is a softer pastry made with less butter and filled with cream and Amarena cherry, or pistachio cream from Bronte a village in the slopes of Mount Etna; Cannolo Siciliano, filled with sheep’s milk ricotta and bomboloni, Italian doughnuts filled with Nutella, custard cream, and marmalade.
The espresso, cold brew, and nitro brew are all made with Lavazza coffee in the state-of-the-art espresso machine, the Victoria Arduino. Highlights include cortado, shakerato, espresso shaken with ice cubes and simple syrup; and other classic Italian staples such as espresso, macchiato, and cappuccino.
The pastries are not the only menu items that steal the show as Masseria Caffè also offers PanBrioiche, Italian ham, and asiago cheese or eggs, spinach, and tomato; pressed paninis, Parma, prosciutto, homemade mozzarella, arugula, and extra virgin olive oil; Tacchino, roasted turkey breast, asiago, rosemary aioli, and arugula; and salads, the Insalata di Grano, the house specialty salad, made with Apulia grains imported from Italy, seasonal vegetables, lemon, and dressed with extra virgin olive oil and Masseria, arugula, endives, radicchio, mushrooms, olives, roasted peppers.
Full-sized cakes are available for preorder, and all menu items are available for catering and are ideal for special occasions and other social gatherings.
Masseria Caffè is located at 891 9th Avenue, New York, NY 10019 and is open MON-FRI- 7:00am – 8:00pm and SAT & SUN – 8:00am – 8:00pm.
