NY Coffee Shop Spotlight: Pasticerria Rocco

Washington Square Park, nestled in Manhattan’s highly trafficked belly-button, draws a huge amount of people in and around itself. This draw sustains an entire network of shops and communities, much like a coral reef can provide refuge to thousands and thousands of fish. But to make rent, shops must typically push hundreds of customers in and out all day, or charge exorbitant prices for less-than exorbitant things.

As you watch walkers stroll back and forth through the wide glass storefront of Pasticerria Rocco, the frenetic city becomes as calm as an aquarium. A steady trickle of New Yorkers and tourists will drift in and out, most knowing exactly what they’d like to order, but still taking the time to ooh-and-ahh at the pastry case that spans most of the shop. 

When you first arrive, you’ll notice something odd for New York: a whole long line of mostly empty tables stretching into the back of the shop. This feature was my original draw, as I’d looked literally all around Manhattan for a coffee shop I could consistently secure for my writing group. At Pasticerria Rocco, you can almost always find a table to sit down at, and they even have a lovely semi-outside seating area in the back that really makes you feel like you’re ‘outside.’ 

The ability to actually snag a table might seem like a red flag to passersby, but I can promise that the shop will satisfy you in terms of price and taste. I owe the low traffic to the atmosphere. If you’re a coffee shop opening in New York past 2020, you’ll have already gotten the memo that you either must have a hyper-minimalist aesthetic, or more warm golden lighting than the IKEA lamp aisle. But Rocco doesn’t need to ‘keep up’ with all the aesthetics of all the new-little pop-up shops. Rocco hangs-up differently styled pictures of the storefront throughout the years at varying heights across the shop, and keeps several of those motivational Pinterest prints about coffee near the bathroom, and somehow white but dim but also kind-of-golden lighting that just makes you think, “Oh yeah, this place is an establishment.” They’re cool—they’re old—they house the neighborhood council meeting once every other week—and their portions are so big I could ramp a Citi-bike off their carrot cake.

It is important to note that their pastries lean to the sugary side; a detail that should delight many. Their strawberry shortcake is light, made with a nice spread of strawberry chunks and jam, and so sugary you’ll hallucinate you’ve found yourself in Candy Land. 

Pasticerria Pointers:

The cookies at Pasticerria are gigantic. I highly recommend the black and white. 

They sell boxes of their pastries in cute little bags wrapped in ribbon for gifts or in huge tupperwares if you want to treat yourself for the rest of the week. 

They’ve got a $6.95 ham and cheese croissant. Instead of taking the subway, walk to Pasticerria Rocco, order the ham and cheese croissant, and walk back home. You’ve practically gotten yourself a free sandwich.

The staff at Pasticceria are extremely nice people, and when you point at a mysterious Italian pastry they’ll say the fancy Italian name of the pastry, and when you continue looking at them confused, they’ll very helpfully tell you what it is. And this isn’t one of those Italian pastry shops where every beautiful cake behind the counter tastes like it’s been spiked (I’m looking at you Doris’s Italian Market). The only thing that tastes like it’s been spiked is the baba rum, and that’s because they soak it in rum, and even that is very tastefully done.

So as not to steer you wrong, I’ll temper your expectations. For all the love I have for Pasticerria Rocco, I must say—the coffee is a little green beany for my tastes… But the espresso’s good! The espresso’s great! And they have a wonderful frozen latte thing!

I fear I may have lost you, and not to double down, but I’ll take the chance to explain my coffee philosophy. To me, yucky coffee tastes like green bean water. Now you might not know what green bean water tastes like from memory, but if you’re sipping some yucky coffee, and you think about green beans, you’ll be cursed with a green bean meter involuntarily measuring the beaniness of your brew. I find it’s a pretty reliable metric. Storebought cans of cold black coffee almost unanimously taste green beany. I think it’s what other people call sour when they’re drinking coffee but I’m not quite sure. I just know what I know, and that is green beans.

Anyway, to summarize, please go to Pasticerria Rocco, they don’t need the extra customers but you might need an extra lovely coffee shop. Maybe hit-up Murray’s Cheese right down the street. And Fay Da Bakery near there is also great and deserves its own article. Seriously, half their pastries are like $2. But you can’t sit for hours in Fay Da and watch the sun wile away while you think about what it really means to eat a sandwich in New York City’s bellybutton. They’d kick you out within minutes.

Not Pasticerria.

They’d never kick you out.

(published in Piece of Cake Food Magazine, November 2024)