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Café Arome
325 Broadway
between Worth Street and Thomas Street
212-233-7447
Or if you should so desire to fax them: 212-233-8920
From the French for "Coffee Aroma" or alternately "Smelly Coffee Shop," Café Arome is none of these things. What it is is a relatively monstrous all-purpose deli I have taken to frequenting when the mood strikes me (lunch break). What it also is is AWESOME. Café Arome is awesome, excellent and amazing. It really is. I mean, just listen to that name. Arome. Arrrrrrrome. Say it all French-like. Arrrrrrome. Just rolls off the tongue. But Café Arome is awesome for reasons that go beyond even its awesome name. So if you please, allow me "criticize" this wonderful eatery.
Food: Why beat around the bush? The food is the best part of Café Arome. And isn’t that really the way it should be? The buffet style elicits suspicion for about seven seconds before you see what those sparkly metal tins are filled with. Noodles et shrimp, alfredo. Broccoli and shrimp in garlic butter. Chicken and mushrooms and shrimp in some brown sweetish sauce. Shrimp and pineapples and beer. Shrimp and shrimp with the shrimp shrimps. They use a lot of shrimp. (I made those last two up).
At the cold bar ya got veggie salads, tuna salads, chicken salads, seafood salads with (imitation?) crab, macaroni salad, shrimp salad (duh), and potato salad. But it’s good, not like your typical deli’s fill-your-plastic-tub-with-mayonnaise-and-oh-I-guess-some-potatoes-and-celery-also crap. To top it off ya got fresh raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, melon, chopped up oranges and hey, even GIGANTIC GRAPES.
"Gee that’s great but I need a sandwich bar that makes excellent sandwiches with stuff like oily mozzarella and prosciutto and the standard fare like ham, turkey and American cheese" you say? Well too bad... that you can’t complain about that anymore cuz there it is! They also have a grill, which I have yet to try out. I assume anything cooked there is excellent, as Jesus clearly runs this place.
Before I go into anything else, let me give a separate rating here of A+ to the food alone. I don’t normally do that (as this is only my second restaurant review), but the food must be recognized. Of course, with this A+, this means that you, dear reader, should automatically be ashamed of yourself for not partaking of Café Arome quite yet. For shame.
Bigness: The bigness is fine. The main room is a bustling thoroughfare of hungry government workers, so you are going to be jostled. Consider this the price to pay for Jesus’ shrimp.
There is ample seating area both upstairs and downstairs. Upstairs is a tad dark and cramped, but the crampedness is due to the fact that it is only half an upstairs. The other half is, instead, an overhang that lets you people-watch. Granted, the people to watch are the poor schmucks waiting below you to get their awesome, awesome food. But it’s actually pretty cool and ya get a nice breeze on a mucky summer day. Downstairs, on the other hand, sucks.
Price: I’m not the best person to ask as I am double tainted. 1) I’m a cheapskate. 2) I’d gladly pay anything/pan for gold/heist diamonds to eat Café Arome’s Sumptuous Buffet of Delights. So maybe that answers the question. But hey, if you are paying $5.52 for your seafood salad sandwich (which they unnecessarily added shrimp to, honestly) and you give them $6.00, you will get two quarters back. That’s service!
The... um... Clientele...: Here the clientele are primarily city workers, as I work right in the heart of Foley Square. Well, I guess it’s more off to the side the inferior vena cava of Foley Square in that case. Anyway, everyone is all dressed up and professional, except for the Asian guy that gives you too much change, so he’s excused. Despite all these professional types, I get the feeling that very few of them are yutzes. A far lower percentage than one would expect, anyway. Very low Yutz Quotient.
How You Get There, Huh?: The X16 express bus takes you from Forest Avenue on Staten Island directly to Café Arome. There is no other way to get there.*
Rating: I am going to have to give Café Arome a rating of 98% minus one star, but it’s really a very unimportant star. Seriously, the food is good enough to overcome any real problems with the place. In fact, you should really try it out by getting some lunch with me. I eat from 1pm to 2pm. That way I have four hours of work before lunch but only three after. Makes the day go by faster. I could push it up or back like a half-hour, if that suits ya better. Just let me know ahead of time... I normally eat alone... So. OK.
- Geoff Haggerty
*Actually the N/R and the 4/5/6 to Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall will get you in the right vicinity.
