Duo Cafe — Restaurant in New York

Duo Café (@duocafe.nyc) is a serene retreat for tea and desserts nestled in the heart of the East Village. 🗽✨ Founded by Ian Wang (@ianwangc), Duo specializes in serving authentic Chinese tea and tea-infused desserts. 🍵🍰 Born and raised in China, tea holds deep cultural significance with a long-standing tradition of cultivation and production. At Duo Café, tea goes beyond just a beverage — it’s a cultural immersion. 🫖✨

Opening a tea shop in a global city like NYC provides an opportunity to showcase the uniqueness of Chinese teas, creating a space where people can experience the rich tapestry of tea culture. 🍃 Duo Café endeavors to bridge cultural divides, foster cross-cultural understanding, and offer a taste of tradition in a contemporary and vibrant setting. 💫

As the Lunar New Year approaches, Duo Café is preparing a special menu and enchanting decorations set up through mid-February! 🏮 If you ever needed an excuse to visit Duo, the Year of the Dragon is the time! 🐲❤️🐉 Swing by and show this post to receive a complimentary ice cream add-on with their delightful sweet and tea set! 🍨✨🍵

Duo Café 📍 223 East 5th Street, East Village

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This dessert spot is really overhyped. Came on a Saturday afternoon around 3pm and was told the wait will be 30-45 minutes. We came back after 45 min and everyone(total of 5 groups) before us on the wait list was just getting seated. We decided to wait a bit longer since there were just 2 more groups in front of us, but that just ended up turning into a 2hr wait which is ridiculous.

As for the dessert, we got the tea set($42) and it was just disappointing. It comes with a pot of tea, 4 small cookies and dried hibiscus, 2 mini mochi ice cream, a caramelized sweet potato, and two baby mandarins. One mandarin was moldy on the inside too. The table next to us also got a bad mandarin. There is nothing wowing or special about the set. Everything in the set just comes off as cheap and convenient, nothing looks handmade inhouse unless you order the cheesecakes. For a price like this, just include a cake in the set rather than two mini mandarins because what in the world is that.

Ambiance was very lacking. The whole set up and design was not even close to tea house vibes. Random decors are really out of place with the whole aesthetic. The menus were a crumbly paper with no color or proper images. All in all, this place is overrated, ridiculously overpriced, and...

Small place with 9 small tables (2-3 seater). Cakes and tea set is nice. But because the shop is very small, it can be very noisy if other customers are loud. The AC isn’t strong enough for the summer. Overall it isn’t the relaxing tea shop that I was expecting. (I went on weekend so it is packed)

Got the tea set with milky oolong tea and upgraded the cookies to osmanthus taro basque cheese cake with an order of marble mousse cake. Both cakes are my favorite of this store. The dried candied roselle is good too. The taro basque cheese cake have equal part of taro layer and cheese cake layer. It is great to balance heavy cheesy flavor that other cheese cake has.

The cookie crust of the marble mousse cake is very buttery but it is bit hard and too thick, it could be thinner. The Hojicha mousse is great.

Tea set is recommended for two. Steep...