CITIZENS OF CHELSEA

Citizens of Chelsea, get excited! A café has opened up on the corner of twenty-fifth street and ninth avenue where Pushcart Coffee used to be. Don't mourn the loss of Pushcart Coffee too strongly because, my friends, its owner Jamie Rogers has partnered up with Australian newcomers to the restaurant world Andrew Geisel and Justin Giuffrida to bring you the Australian café Citizens Of Chelsea clad with ample cups of the beloved Pushcart Coffee roasts.

“It's not that it’s about Australian food. It's more about good clean food and coffee” Co-Owner Justin Giuffrida told me in his charming Australian accent as we stood waiting for my Americano to be brewed. Served in a jade colored white trimmed cup and saucer that matched the café’s bright accent walls, I could tell I was in a place that had gone beyond the practical necessities and strategically embellished in the details.

With white walls to complement the jade ones, floor-to-ceiling windows that line two walls letting the sunlight flood in, a long communal wooden table with a few smaller ones behind it that sits next to the open kitchen, small octagonal white tiled counters, distressed concrete floors and individually planted succulents that enhance almost every café lifestyle instagram photo, it's exactly what you'd want out of a café.

Then there's the food. It's exactly what you think of when you think Australian café—clean, delicious and not overdone so that the flavors you want to taste are the ones that stand out. Their Avocado Toast is amazing, it’s constructed so that the creamy mashed avocado sits atop a thick slice of Balthazar's Sourdough toast that has been coated with a thin layer of feta–aka a recipe that caused me to lose all self control and stick my fork in not only my own serving, but the one next to me too. Then there’s the tomato-y Baked Eggs made with chorizo and served with toast and the eye-catching Barbie Bowl, aka a dragon fruit bowl. Each dish is beautifully composed, colorful, fresh and exciting to eat from the moment it lands in front of you and you feel that eagerness to explore your first bite till the sad last bite where you wish that the dish would last forever.