FAQs

NYC Coffee Rankings is a website and resource for anyone who wants to explore the best espresso-based drinks in NYC, whether you’re a local or visiting the city.

That would be me, Neil Andrews, a science journalist during working hours and a coffee seeker at all other times (during working hours too, admittedly). I’ve visited over 240 cafes so far and have ranked their lattes, with many more cafes to visit.

Someone with an obsession. Someone who wants to help you avoid bad drinks. Someone with enough time on his hands to do so.

My goal is to steer you toward cafes that make great espresso-based drinks, away from bad ones, and to increase your knowledge about espresso. I also want cafe visitors to expect and demand better from the places where they spend good money. See my About page for more.

Any and every coffee shop in New York City that ISN'T a gargantuan national chain like Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts. I also visit places that make coffee but do something else as their primary gig, like a bakery.

It’s my favorite drink. However, as long as you can make good espresso, you can make any espresso-based drink, so it’s highly likely that the rankings apply to cappuccinos and other drinks containing espresso and milk.

This site is still totally for you. If a café can make great espresso, they should be able to make great coffee, too. I really believe that.

The quality of the espresso, the quality of the milk steaming, the freshness of the drink, and the quality of the latte art. See the Judging Criteria post for more details.

I want to provide rankings that most accurately represent how well a particular cafe is doing right now. Since I’ve been working, and will be working, on this project for a long time, many of the cafes I’ve visited received their ranking a while ago, and I want the rankings to be as close to current reality as possible. 

Generally, once a ranking is a couple years old, it’s a candidate for a re-ranking, though, under certain circumstances – especially if, in hindsight, I feel that I under- or over-ranked a cafe – I may do a re-ranking for a place I visited less than two years ago. 

I really like former New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni’s thoughts on re-ranking, and I have a similar perspective on re-ranking coffee shops.

I used to say that, but now it’s more that I recognize how difficult it is for cafes to make great espresso-based drinks, and so the rankings reflect that reality, not any snobbery. With all due respect to George Costanza, in my version of the “it’s not you it’s me” routine, it’s you (the latte), not me.

You can’t help but learn a lot after visiting 241 cafes (and counting). I’ve also completed several espresso-making and milk-steaming workshops (I highly recommend classes from Coffee Project New York), lead coffee tours in NYC, spend a lot of time reading and thinking about espresso, and experiment with making espresso-based drinks at home. Also – allow me one boast – I have discerning taste and feel confident I can judge lattes accurately, fairly, and objectively.

A laser focus on reviewing NYC espresso-based drinks and on the quality of the drink. I don’t care about the WiFi, or the interior decoration, or the number of seats – I just care about how good your drink is.

Yes. I want cafes to serve better espresso-based drinks by training their baristas better, and for people to have more appreciation of good baristas. Maybe my rankings will help push things in that direction.

Suggest cafes for me to visit. Suggest cafes for me to re-rank. Argue with me about particular rankings – maybe your experience is different from mine and you think I should give a particular cafe another chance. Finally, tell me what site features I should add. Let’s make this site as good as it can be!