Cafe Gitane

Gorgeously produced and full of fascinating interviews, profiles, and recipes, Cafe Gitane: 30 Years tells the story of the vibrant downtown New York culture that thrived in the '90s and 2000s through the lens of an iconic institution nestled at its heart.

Through the voices of patrons, artists, and locals who have frequented the beloved Cafe Gitane, readers are sent back to an analogue New York, when NoLIta was still Little Italy, a quiet neighbourhood tucked between SoHo and the Lower East Side, and downtown hummed with creative energy. Here a tiny, cosmopolitan French Moroccan cafe evolved into a cultural nexus: a meeting place and playground for everyone, from the most talented emerging artists to out-of-town visitors.

Cafe Gitane: 30 Years invites readers to savour the sights, sounds, and tastes of an establishment that has left an unusually lasting mark on an ever-shifting city. It chronicles not just a unique cafe, but a creative community and a microcosm of New York itself.

McNally Jackson Books, Nolita's neighbourhood bookstore since 2004, is honoured to be publishing this celebratory scrapbook. Indeed, Cafe Gitane commemorates the enduring spirit and connection shared by two downtown institutions and gathering places, whose entwined histories and evolutions help define the fabric of the city.