Cafe Gitane: 30 Years - Limited Slipcase Edition

Through the voices of patrons, artists, and locals who have frequented the beloved Cafe Gitane, readers are sent back to an analogue 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 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.

“Gitane is one of those spots you always met your friends at. Everyone knew it. It was a secret but not even sort of a secret at the same time. I used to roll around in the ’90s on a BMX bike with my friends and we’d always stop by there. Cafe Gitane: 30 Years is an electrifying tour of the cultural explosion downtown and my personal favorite cafe that was in the middle of it.” 

—Norman Reedus

“A vanguard of cool, back on the scene again . . . Thirty years later, and with a new book honoring it, Cafe Gitane is drawing a fresh crowd . . . Cafe Gitane: 30 Years . . . gives Gitane its due alongside haunts like Fanelli’s, Lucien, Raoul’s and the Odeon . . . The book features interviews with glitzy regulars like Norman Reedus, Serge Becker and Inez van Lamsweerde . . . There’s a recipe for the restaurant’s avocado toast (widely said to be the first served in New York City), an ode to the little green dress worn by Gitane waitresses and . . . tales about how Cat Power was the cafe’s first server, how David Bowie loved the couscous so much he would have it delivered to his apartment and how Albert Hammond Jr. of the Strokes wooed a waitress he went on to marry.”

—Alex Vadukul, The New York Times

“There was nothing comparable in the city . . . I felt so comfortable at Luc’s place that in some ways I dreaded Balthazar opening, because it would bring an unwelcome end to my daily meetings there.” 

—Keith McNally

“Anyone who has spent a serious amount of time in Lower Manhattan over the past 30 years thinks of Cafe Gitane as an old friend. Now a beautiful new scrapbook commemorates and celebrates the French-Moroccan café’s story . . . It's an ideal gift for any downtown denizen. Especially since it also reveals the recipes for some of its most celebrated dishes: avocado toast, spicy meatball tagine, and Moroccan couscous, for starters.”

—Ashley Baker, Air Mail

“I started going to Gitane soon after Supreme opened. It’s always been an authentic and naturally cool spot that has stood the test of time. It’s probably the restaurant that me and my family have eaten at the most over the last thirty years.” 

—James Jebbia

“Impossibly cool anecdotes . . . fill the pages of [this] 30th anniversary coffee table book . . . It features interviews and stories with actors and screenwriters, fashionistas and parish priests, forming a time capsule of an analog ‘90s New York, where a rockstar regular might end up marrying a cafe waitress.”

—Ryan Kailath, Gothamist

“In ’95 there was not much else open in the neighborhood. It was the mafia and Luc. Gitane was the only place in the neighborhood where you could go and have great food. Ever since we discovered it, we’ve come at least a couple times a week, always for breakfast or lunch. You know you can go and you’ll get exactly what you want and what you’ve been craving. There’s just a few places left like that in New York.” 

—Inez and Vinoodh

Isobel Lola Brown was born in California and grew up shuttling between coasts,  spending most of her childhood at Cafe Gitane in New York City. She is a recent graduate of Bennington College, where she studied Literary Journalism.

Luc Lévy is the founder and owner of Cafe Gitane, established in 1994. He was raised in Casablanca, Morocco until he left for Paris, eventually making his way to New York, where he’s remained ever since. 

Melanie Dunea is an award-winning American photographer and author, best known for the book series My Last Supper as well as her revealing portraits of some of the world’s most celebrated artists, chefs, politicians, and intellectuals. Her works have been translated into several languages and have sold more than 70,000 copies worldwide. She has received awards from American Photography, PDN, Communication Arts, Graphis, the Society of Publication Designers, International Photography Awards, and the Lucie Foundation. My Last Supper, The Next Course won the Gourmand Award for Best in the World - USA for Photography. A native of Chicago, Dunea makes her home in New York City’s Tribeca neighborhood.

Cafe Gitane: 30 Years • Hardcover ISBN: 9781946022769

Pub: Nov 27, 2024 • McNally Jackson Books

9” x 12”” • 288 pages • $150