Cafe Gitane: 30 Years (Isobel Lola Brown)

Gorgeously produced and full of fascinating interviews, profiles, and recipes, Café Gitane: 30 Years tells the story of the vibrant downtown New York culture that thrived in the '90s and 2000s through the lens of an iconic institution nestled at its heart.

Through the voices of patrons, artists, and locals who have frequented the beloved Cafe Gitane, readers are sent back to an analog New York, when NoLIta was still Little Italy, a quiet neighborhood tucked between SoHo and the Lower East Side, and downtown hummed with creative energy. Here a tiny, cosmopolitan French Moroccan cafe evolved into a cultural nexus: a meeting place and playground for everyone, from the most talented emerging artists to out-of-town visitors.

Cafe Gitane: 30 Years invites readers to savor the sights, sounds, and tastes of an establishment that has left an unusually lasting mark on an ever-shifting city. It chronicles not just a unique café, but a creative community—and a microcosm of New York itself.

McNally Jackson Books, Nolita’s neighborhood bookstore since 2004, is honored to be publishing this celebratory scrapbook. Indeed, Café Gitane commemorates the enduring spirit and connection shared by two downtown institutions and gathering places, whose entwined histories and evolutions help define the fabric of the city.