Kava Cafe: Roman And Williams Design At Its Height

Just one block south of the High Line, Kava Cafe is the hippest new java joint at the edge of the Meatpacking District. Here's the skinny...

Roman And Williams, the design team behind the Ace Hotel New York, Lyon, and the Standard Hotel New York make this a warm, industrialized, and chic cafe. As we learned from our fall chat with R&W husband and wife team Stephen Alesch and Robin Standefer, their sexy aesthetic comes from their love of the natural world and their knowledge of cooking and entertaining within set spaces.

As T Magazine notes, "Design groupies will recognize the high-gloss black paint that reflects the light like polished onyx, a Roman & Williams signature. Bronzed mirrors, terrazzo floor, a brass snoots illuminating tambour walls--it feels more 1970s Milan than 21st-century New York."

The joint, owned by John Saric (a partner in the Ace Hotel) was inspired by hotel's lobby Stumptown that he wanted his caffeine fix to come closer to his home on the West Side. Saric pays homage to his family roots by using the Croatian word for cafe as the name of his business.

As T notes, the bar comes with the ultra shnazzy new Strada espresso machines built by La Marzocco.

With this luxury cafe appearing at the edge of the MPD, could the neighborhood emerge as more of a coffee and polite chatter area rather than a bastion of inebriated revelry?

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