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Café Regular du Nord
158 Berkeley Pl
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Uber
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Hours
Monday:
7:00am - 6:00pm
Tuesday:
7:00am - 6:00pm
Wednesday:
7:00am - 6:00pm
Thursday:
7:00am - 6:00pm
Friday:
7:00am - 6:00pm
Saturday:
7:00am - 6:00pm
Sunday:
7:00am - 6:00pm
About Us
On your next visit to New York City, you may completely bypass Manhattan in favor of Brooklyn and not miss a thing. Brooklyn is, it seems, NYC. It was during a recent sojourn to Brooklyn's Park Slope that we happened upon one of the most interesting new additions to the area, a real comptoir, a gorgeous place called Café Regular Du Nord. Designed by Cognoscenti et al, the designers responsible for Five Points, Rothschilds, and OLMY Social Club, this little jewel of a place looks like an Hermes box, ribbon and all, with the feel of a well appointed hotel car circa 1922, accented by all kinds of moody touches, crowned by Julius Kozlowski's riff on James Ensor's "Christ Entering Brussels", substituting Ensor's banner paen to socialism with Sartre's "Hell is Other People". Asked about the substitution, a stylish staffer, Angela, pointed to a blurb on a recent catalog of Kozlowski's work, and explained that Kozlowski has "a thing against mean people" and is particularly exercised by how the internet with its facilitation of hive behavior has given new meaning to Sartre's phrase. Think Lanier's recent indictment of drive by anonymity and destructive pack behavior on blogs. Heady stuff but that's the thing about Cafe Regular. They make you think about the social contract. They make you think about public space. They make you think about how we treat each other. They make you think about beauty. Stocked with Book Forum, the LRB and the NYRB, it isn't at all onerous. With their generous discounts for teachers and students, the place attracts the thinking kind and it seems celebrities flying below the radar. Angela pointed out two fairly high octane actors and explained that they're treated just like all the other Regulars. The Cafe serves coffee by La Colombe Torrefaction, heretofore found only in the poshest restaurants in the City. You will also find comforting pots of Barry's tea. Pastries are from Sullivan Street and Colson. The hot chocolate is Jacques Torres - pure deliverance! One complaint: it is often hard to find a seat. No matter, you will always find space at the counter and oh so casually fall into conversation with the person beside you. Cafe Regular really pulls it off. It conveys all the promise and possibility of a sexy morning after place in Paris and, at the same time, the propriety of an after school treat stop. A refuge, where Hell hath no role with no WiFi or other distractions. Here, caffeinated civility and the Good Life as in the life well designed are all that matter. And sometimes, that's all it really takes. Just in case you're at the other end of the Slope and to maintain that transcendent feeling (believe us, once you get it, there's no turning back) you'll find another equally articulate if even more abbreviated outpost on 11th Street and Fifth Avenue. 158 A Berkeley Place and 318 A 11th Street, Brooklyn. Good Things, The Quarterly for the Discerning, May 2010