New York City Coffee Rankings
I help locals and tourists alike find the best espresso-based drinks, from the best coffee shops, in the city that never sleeps.
Maru (Williamsburg)
Date visited: 11/8/25
4.8
RECENT REVIEW
Note: Wow! This was a superb latte, making the long line worth the wait (although once you order things move quickly). This was a bold cup, which I love. The beans they were selling were roasted recently, which is always a great sign. No sleep till Maru – Brooklyn!
Black Fox (550 Madison Ave)
Date visited: 10/14/25
4.5
RECENT REVIEW
Note: Back on 3/3/22, I visited the 45 East 45th Street location, awarding this cafe a 4.4. My latest visit, to the Madison Ave. location, was also great, earning a score that is a smidge higher. This was an excellent latte, at a good temperature and with nice latte art. I like the bean they use, too. Black Fox is one of the best places in the city. Go there!
HI: EN FROM VIETNAM (Little Italy)
Date visited: 1/24/26
4.1
RECENT REVIEW
Note: This is a Vietnamese coffee place. While this type of coffee is not my favorite, I enjoyed this drink – the classic Vietnamese iced coffee with condensed milk – very much; it was very good (this drink is called cà phê sữa đá). If you like Vietnamese coffee, you may rank this higher. Go for low-level sweetness (they will ask you what you prefer), as you don’t need a lot of condensed milk to get a sweet taste. They use crushed ice (which I prefer) rather than cubed ice.
There are hundreds – many hundreds – of coffee shops in the Big Apple, but with so many options, it’s difficult to find the places that are worth your time. It’s a huge challenge because:
Making great espresso-based drinks is really difficult
Even in commercial cafes, most drinks containing espresso fail, and often spectacularly so
The drinks are expensive – six, seven, or even over eight dollars is the going rate in this town for a latte
Most people don’t know WHY their drink tastes terrible
Hi, I’m Neil!
I’m a coffee lover who visits cafes all over New York City to explore espresso-based drinks, particularly lattes, my favorite drink.
Having great coffee is one of the most memorable things you can do in NYC, but it’s all too common to have a bad experience.
I travel all over the city to find the best cafes for you, ranking their lattes on a 1 to 5 scale based on the quality of the espresso, the milk steaming, and other factors.
I post the rankings on this website so that you have a handy guide to the best coffee NYC has to offer. Any cafe that scores around a four or higher merits a visit; once the score reaches 4.3 and above, that’s what I call Destination Coffee: Coffee so good that you should travel for it, even if it’s out of your way.
I visit hundreds of spots, lead coffee tours of the best places, take espresso workshops and private classes, do a ton of reading, and make very good espresso at home. So you can be sure that my rankings are well informed, trustworthy, fair, and honest – I’m going to tell you exactly what I think, and why.
If you want the best espresso-based drinks in Gotham, explore my rankings, read my blog entries to learn more about espresso, and take a look at my About section and FAQs to learn more about why I’m the right man for the job of finding you the best coffee the city has to offer.
Here’s a sampling of what people have told me about my coffee rankings:
“Hey Neil, thanks for your coffee suggestions. This helped my wife and I for the last few days as we visited from out of town. I travel a ton and visit as many shops as I can as well. I’m bookmarking your site for future visits to NYC too.”
“Neil - this is brilliant! Love your dedication to discovering, and then sharing, the ‘best of the best’ lattes in NYC.”
“Thank you for your coffee-ranking project. It is astonishingly difficult to find 4+ coffee in this city’s shops. Even scores of 3 are scarce. I have thrown in the trash far too many unacceptable cups (even from places with coffee-snob credentials), berating myself for throwing away money. I appreciate your sharing your rankings with the world.”
“I recently found your coffee site, and I am quite impressed with it! Thank you for sharing your experiences.”