This is Highly Recommend, a column dedicated to our very opinionated editors’ favorite things to eat, drink, and buy.
I’ve always admired the people who spend their Saturday mornings in an intense kickboxing class or doing downward facing dog in a 104ºF room. I’m not one of those people. My Saturday self care routine involves a one-mile stroll from my apartment in Brooklyn to Lella Alimentari.
Lella is a hybrid of a third-wave coffee shop and a teensy grocery store plucked off of a vicolo, or small alley, in Italy. The shelves are stocked with imported goods—cans of tomatoes, beautifully packaged olive oil, bags of dried pasta—while the walls look like something a nonna decorated, down to the children’s dolls. My friends refer to Lella as “ciao,” which is how the Tuscan baristas greet you as you breeze through the doors.
Lella is never not packed, but somehow my friends and I always hold court at the long white-washed table that runs down the middle of the cafe. It’s our version of the Central Perk couch. More often than not we’ll be nursing hangovers with a large iced coffee and a piadine, an Italian flatbread sandwich that’s stuffed with prosciutto cotto, speck, stracchino cheese, arugula, and radicchio. The bitter greens paired with the warm, melty cheese, and the salty cured meat makes me feel like I’m eating a balanced meal—it’s texturally balanced so that counts. Plus, everyone knows the best hangover cure is carbs, cheese, and meat. Sometimes we’ll moonlight as people who have it together, coming in earlier before the crowds roll in and catching up over breakfast salads of egg, shishito pepper, and avocado. All the shades of green remind me of what’s in an actually balanced meal.
No matter the breakfast order, a visit to “ciao” is the perfect way to start my Saturday, no boxing gloves or smelly gym locker rooms needed.