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Cafe Bagutta
Rating Details »
Categories: Coffee & Tea, Restaurants
Neighborhood: Morningside Heights1241 Amsterdam Ave
(between 121st St & Morningside Dr)
New York, NY 10027
(646) 386-7340
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- Nearest Transit:
-
116th St-Columbia Univ (1)
125th St (A, C, B, D)
- Hours:
Mon-Fri. 7:30 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Sat. 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Sun. 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Parking:
- Street
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Takes Reservations:
- No
- Delivery:
- No
- Take-out:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- Yes
- Wi-Fi:
- No
- Good for:
- Dinner
- Alcohol:
- None
7 reviews for Cafe Bagutta
Went here for lunch during the week with a friend who works at Columbia.
Bagutta is charming but definitely a restaurant and not a student lounge-y hang out like Hungarian Pastry Shop. It's a sandwich, coffee and pastry place; they have table service or you can grab pastries and drinks to go at the counter.
We both ordered lunch specials: soup plus a wrap; I had the $9 hummus wrap special and my friend ordered the $10 chicken wrap lunch special. Both of us had the carrot ginger soup which was absolutely delicious and topped with cream (which they hadn't mentioned). I could barely taste the ginger but the soup itself was creamy and addictive, even after I skimmed the cream off. We split the red velvet cupcake with buttercream frosting for dessert. It was good, but not $4.50 for a large cupcake good.
There was a wide variety of muffins and croissants, and only a few cupcake options. They have crepes too!
Service was slow and inattentive but I chalked that up to the waitress who said it was her first day.
All in all, nice fairly inexpensive place to grab a bite, but not for a quick grab-and-go lunch if you're in a hurry.
A few true things:
1. Bagutta in a hurry is no good. Things happen slowly at Bagutta. Very slowly.
2. Bagutta staff doesn't want to chat. They want to serve you your food (or drink) and they want to be left alone.
3. Bagutta is *not* a cafe. It's not a place for a long leisurely tea. It's not a place to park your laptop and finish a paper while drinking lattes. It's basically a restaurant that will allow you to sit at a table and order a cider or a coffee. But cafe it is not.
4. Nonetheless, Bagutta remains a fairly quiet, peaceful pseudo-cafe environment near Columbia.
This place just opened a couple of days ago. I stopped by to see what they got. They have breakfasts until 11:30 am, lunch from 11:30-4pm and dinner afterwards. Breakfast items include muffins, scones, cupcakes, egg platters, croissant w/ ham and cheese, oatmeal, and so on. Lunch has items like soups, baguette sandwiches, paninis, salads, pastas, and different lunch special wraps. Dinner has both pastas and main courses like beef stew, seafood, chicken.
They ran out of ham and cheese croissants when i went in today :( so i just got an iced soy latte. The latte was decent. People there were nice. There were quite a bit of tables and space in there. The interior was tasteful and clean, I liked the atmosphere.
The only thing that kind of dissapointing was that I read on some website that said:
"...that doesn't mean bring your laptop. Despite sharing the neighborhood with a major university and its thousands of WiFi-hungry students, Cafe Bagutta will not be offering its tables as a makeshift study lounge.'This is not a place where you come with your computer and hang out for five hours," Bagutta explains. "I want this to be a more creative, artistic place. I want this to be a place for people to express their individuality.'"
I actually think that it would bring them more business, especially nearby Columbia, if they provided internet & welcomed people to cafe study. Just speaking from undergrad experiences that all the cafes near campus were always full, and when people are studying they get hungry & thirsty every 5 minutes, haha.
Anywhos, I'm going back early to try their ham & cheese croissants next time. Oh they don't accept credit cards until next week. This week, cash only!
Went here for lunch with a friend. It was...A-OK. The staff was very friendly & attentive. I ordered a sandwich & my friend had a burger. The bread on my sandwich was...chewy. Like, I felt like a rabid cheetah tearing apart a gazelle, chewy.
This place would get a 5 if it only did dinner.
The prix fixe at 15.95 is so good, I'd go there once a week. The service at night was great. Even though the wait for the food was long, I felt it was because there was only one guy in the kitchen and he was making each dish one at a time. The food is great.
But the regular coffee/pastries counter service during the day sucks.
oops, didn't realize there's a character limit. anyway, my review got cut off, so i want to summarize some key points why i rated the place so highly.
pros:
*BYOB -awesome
*great prices ($15.95 for a prix fixe where the entree alone could be that much)
*excellent lighting for food
*friendly and fast service (i didn't experience anything wrong at all with my service like others have posted. our server was a beautiful and charming black girl from columbia, md, and a nice south american runner)
*nice, non pretentious decor, with big glass windows, and a french bistro feel to it
*delicious food and beautiful presentations
*quality glasses, tableware, and silverware
cons:
*no black pepper grinders on the table, although i forgot to ask if there was a large one for the dining room. most places don't have personal pepper grinders, but they should, so no points lost for lack of one here, i just think that's the way black pepper should be served.
*not open very late. we went fairly early, by my standards, and when we left, the café half of the place was already closed down; but they are open early for breakfast, so...
i figured i'd give this place the max stars because my dining experience was just about as good as it gets, but when you consider the value of the place (byob & good prices & quality ingredients), it ranks as one of the best places i've been to uptown... easily. also felt they needed a bump up from the not so good reviews and lower rating. my dinner experience and staff was great, could be a totally different story for breakfast and lunch. i think most chefs/cooks hate breakfast though, and a place with the creative touches like i saw at dinner, i figure would feel stifled with something so boring as breakfast, and who wants to be up that early anyway. that's my opinion.
I've been here three times within a week. twice to get coffee (good coffee) and then today, in the rain for coffee and muffin. So far - I have no problem with their food and when I ran by at lunch, it was very popular and busy.
What I have a problem with is the crappy crappy service I just experienced when I went there today. I ran in from the rain and these two girls at the counter were the slowest, rudest service people I have ever seen. They see me there, obviously I am the only one at the counter. And they work SO SLOW. One is making a smoothie, the other some mint tea or something. I stand there literally for 7-10 minutes without a single "we'll be right with you" or a look of acknowledgment. And it wasn't like they were rushing their work trying to get to me. complete lackadaisical attitude. Finally the tea girl gets to me and i order a large coffee half caf half decaf (No decaf) and a muffin (she is useless in answering my questions about which muffins they have) so finally i just point, pay, and go. USELESS GIRLS. don't go there Saturdays at 3pm.
