Johnna’s Pick of the Week (Travel Edition): Settepani (NY, NY)

Let us preface this review by stating we are not sweets people (*Translation: We do not eat or appreciate sweeter foods the way most people do) and we only order one thing for brunch. This will be short and sweet (*No pun intended…) Over the past 10 years Harlem has welcomed an array of restaurants from different genres to include but not limited to: Italian cuisine, French foods and Ethiopian. Settepani has become a landmark to this growth in a different direction from the typical soul food restaurants Harlem is known for. Having been here for pastries and the like in the past, we decided it was time to do brunch in the small cafe.

Brunch was a success. It started with a warm welcome from the owner who greeted us with a smile and cheerful “Hello” asking whether we wanted indoors or outdoors. Outdoors was the no-brainer choice with the Harlem sun basking brightly and a nice cool breeze floating by us. We started with a couple mimosas, of course, and nibbled on the bread (*which was a little to hard and basic for our taste…) while skimming the menu. Naturally we decided on the poached egg option, the eggs benedict, which was de-lish. Though just about any restaurant can poach a good egg, its the hollandaise that really does the trick which Settepani did a pretty descent job of creating.

The pastries were the real treat to see. Peering through the glass pastry cases, our eyes went through a circus of emotions from all the creative desserts and rainbow of pastel colors. We declined to try anything on this trip but we’ve had the experience of their cheesecake which we can vouch for, this is some good New York cheesecake. We would go back to Settepani because it’s in our neighborhood and we would suggest you do the same if your in our neck of the woods. We will, however, say it’s not worth a trip from all the way in Staten Island (*If that gives you any correlation), but it deserves a trip if you’re in Harlem.