Variety Coffee Roasters is all grown up: One of the pioneers of NYC’s coffee scene, Variety’s new-ish shop on the Upper East Side is all wood paneling and tasteful lighting. The Chelsea and Park Slope locations are just as urbane, while the original shops in Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Bushwick are appropriately funky. Variety first started roasting coffee in 2014, and is known for its nutty, chocolatey roasts.

This busy, buzzy Midtown shop is an oasis of Australian-style coffee in a neighborhood otherwise glutted with Starbucks and other chain shops. The coffee is excellent: The flat whites, cold brews, and pour-overs are mini masterpieces. But the draw is the food, from the extensive breakfast menu (chorizo-baked eggs and a shishito pepper omelet with aioli) to sandwiches, salads, and pastries. Note the second location at Urbanspace, located at 570 Lexington Avenue, is closed on weekends.

A solid cortado and drip coffee anchor the menu of this stylish coffee bar near Bryant Park. It’s a much stronger choice for coffee than the several chain stores closer to the park, and as a bonus, it serves a superb warm chocolate chip cookie. Culture Espresso is open daily and has two additional locations nearby .

Is this the best coffee shop in New York City? It’s certainly one of the busiest, where the line snakes out the door during rush hour. Truth is, it’s worth it. This Danish import has excellent coffee, exquisite pastries, table service, and an appealing Scandi style. If only every day could start with a perfect cappuccino in an earthenware cup and a cardamom bun.

There’s nothing in coffee quite like Abraço, an East Village shop with so much personality it’s hard to take it in all at once. There’s the coffee, with wild-haired co-owner Jamie McCormick often working the bar. There are the pastries, such as co-owner Liz Quijada’s justifiably famous orange-scented olive oil cake. And there’s the scene, the chatty locals who, in the words of Frank Zappa, make this “the top freako watering hole and social HQ.” Closed Mondays.

This sprawling Williamsburg roastery and cafe is an outpost of a coffee roaster in Bogota, Colombia. All its raw beans arrive by FedEx straight from Colombia just 10 days after it’s harvested, which makes for some of the freshest coffee around. The space has plenty of seating, but even on the busiest days, there are probably going to be more plants than people. Devoción also has locations in Downtown Brooklyn, Dumbo, and Flatiron.

Suited in the Financial District works with some of the biggest names in New York roasting right now, including Sey and Little Wolf, along with a handful of international roasters whose beans are available from the shop. Expect to find a handful obligatory drinks on the menu — hot chocolate, matcha and turmeric lattes — but stick to a cup of espresso or drip to fully appreciate the thoughtful sourcing that’s happening here.

Black Fox on Pine Street has the best coffee selection day-to-day of any shop in the city, showcasing coffees from a variety of esteemed roasters around the world. The iced matcha latte is a standout on the drink menu and should be ordered with the coffee shop’s housemade nut milk. Black Fox has another Fidi coffee bar, a cafe in Midtown, and a coffee shop in the Pendry Hotel behind the new Penn Station build-out at Moynihan Hall.

For the freshest of fresh-roasted coffee beans, it’s hard to beat % Arabica. The Kyoto-based import opened its first U.S. location in Brooklyn last year with a souped-up espresso machine, baked goods from Balthazar, and a “green bean corner” where customers can buy beans to be roasted on the spot in seven minutes.

Cousins Ali Suliman and Hakim Sulaimani launched Yafa Cafe in 2019 to spotlight Yemeni coffee culture in Sunset Park. Nearly three years later, it’s still going strong as a neighborhood cornerstone where the Yemeni-rooted food is just as good as the assortment of coffees. The cousins also started to roast an in-house line of coffee during the pandemic, offering blends and Yemeni single-origin roasts for sale at the shop and online.