Cafe Hestia

This place was a happy find. My daughter and I were cold and hungry. This offered huge variety, healthy choices, easy access and reasonable prices. Good was fantastic! Loved the spinach pie and cold quinoa salad. We are here twice in 1 day!

I checked this place out when I was traveling to NYC to celebrate a ladies get-​away birthday weekend for a good friend of mine. It can sometimes be a challenge on getting consensus on where to eat when you are in a group (we were 5). Hestia was a godsend! If they had a place like this in South Florida, it would be packed all the time. How to describe? Think of it as the best hot bar buffet, salad bar, deli, coffee bar, made to order Asian stir fry/​grill and market rolled into one. The closest thing we have to this in South Florida is Whole Foods market (sans the Asian grill part) With all the restaurants that we could have eaten at in downtown Manhattan, we came here for 2 meals (a lunch or dinner-​cannot remember which as it was a few months ago in July 4, 2015) and for breakfast.
This is one of those places you go to when you are hungry and undecided on what you want to eat but just know that you will be able to find something delicious to fill you tummy. Pricing was reasonable, service was good and the front of the store provides a nice sitting area to relax and eat your food. This is a self serve place where you can pick the food you want and eat it there or take it to go.
If I am ever back in the Big Apple, this will definitely on my «places to eat» list.

Great Korean food hidden inside typically awful-​looking midtown deli.

I mostly come here for the Korean food. I think compared to most places in Midtown, you get more bang for your buck. The buffet can add up, but for little under $ 10, you can get a large bento box or various Korean soups. I highly recommend the dok Mandu soup, but I see a lot of people ordering the ramen as well. Bento box, tofu soup, dumpling soup, etc everything that I’ve tried so far tastes great and homemade.
The sign outside actually says «Island Café» if you are looking to try this place!

They literally have everything. You can get so much food for little money which is good for everyone. ammiright?!

I find it clean, friendly, efficient, affordable, and fast. I work up the street and it’s my lunch spot go-​to. They’re also on seamless.
I only go for the korean, japanese, and soup bar. tried the burritos too — but only once.
Vegetable Soba (hot miso or chicken broth soup) has lots of fresh veggies in it, and they aren’t stingy with the portions. So many different veggies and flavors in there too, its not boring by a longshot. And healthy!
The vegetable + tofu bibimbap is a treat. I order it spicy and it comes with extra red sauce, with just under a typical sriracha heat which is perfect for me. It’s a generous portion for sure and the sauce is great. The beef bibimbap is also delicious, with a reasonable portion of meat.
I’ve gotten the Yookgaejang beef soup and its excellent too (yook-​guy-​jong is how I pronounce it, although that’s probably incorrect) and the beef was delicious.
In all, ordering at the soup bar can be a little chaotic or unclear but just walk up and tell them what you’d like. The guys behind the counter are on top of it and don’t need a fancy ordering system. They never mess up. There’s a decent amount of casual seating, feels like a mall food court.

Good deal for lunch. They have a huge variety to choose from. This place is at a great location. Depending on what you get, some of it is pricey, some of it is good. The thai food is the best value in my opinion.

Compared to the Korean food a few blocks away on 32^nd? Not even close.
BUT compared to the Korean food served at most other midtown delis? Amazing!
I love the bibimbap here for a cheap quick lunch — the egg is actually runny inside and they use lots of high quality veggies. It’s huge and CLEAN, and everyone is really friendly. My favorite deli in the area!

Lunch. Midtown. Options. A-​OK.

Great variety but I’m not keen on open self serve food that is covered in who knows what germs from people sneezing all over it. Took spicy tuna roll to go. Rice was hard and the roll was merely ok. They have a variety of foods to meet all cultural cravings. Perhaps the Korean food is better. Next time…

I come here often as it is right around the corner from my office. SO many options — something for everyone and reasonably priced. Sandwiches, salads, Chinese, udon, regular soups, sushi, insane cold and hot bar as well as freshly made salads. No matter what I have gotten is has always been fresh and delicious! They manage to keep the counters and serving areas perfectly clean, especially for the amount of traffic at peak hour. Major recommendation? Try to swing by right at noon, fresh pick at the buffet and NO lines! Hestia is my go to when I am not quite sure what I want, I always manage to find something!

Horrible. This was the worst service I saw in a long time. The several people I had to speak to who were working acted as if they were doing me a favor when I wanted to order something. They also seem to have a huge variety, but they were out of almost everything! Will never go back. The night side was that it had a lot of space to sit

My new favorite spot to pick up lunch. The hot bar is extensive and AMAZING. I could just eat the pork belly forever and be happy. They also have the regular sandwich options and a lot of Asian noodle dishes to choose from. It’s a place, but even when it’s crowded, the line moves quickly.

I just moved my job from Chelsea to Herald Square and I have to say… the delis midtown are nothing like delis in Flatiron/​Chelsea area. Let’s just say I eat my lunch here at least 3 times a week. I explored neighborhood delis and I have to say It is the better one of the bunch. Sushi? Salads? Korean? Thai? Italian? Sandwiches? Buffets? You can get everything. Literally EVERYTHING!!!

What is the story of Hestia, you ask? As a wall inside this café will teach you, Hestia was a mythical goddess who presided over the cooking of family meals. She also sacrificed pigs, but we won’t mention that part. This HUGE very clean café, which lives up to its name, practically has everything your heart can dream of. The first time I came here, I walked around perusing my options and felt so overwhelmed. For lunch, they have soups, salads, sandwiches, sushi, stir fry, a self-​serve bar, smoothies, bubble tea, ETC. You get the picture. I’m one of those indecisive types where I’m so indecisive it’s actually destructive to me. So the fact that the salad bar doesn’t have predetermined salad orders forces me to take off one star. You can’t make me make up my own salad, Café Hestia! What if it sucks? Then I only have myself to blame!
Well, after forcing myself away from the salad bar, I went to the sandwich men and ordered a «phở» (pronounced «phuh,» people!) sandwich. For being ~$ 7.50, it was enormous but I couldn’t stop eating it because it was so delicious. I felt huge afterwards and I didn’t regret it. Perfect amount of beef and noodles, but I had to put more Hoisin sauce because I like it so spicy I can’t see straight. However, I’ve never had phở anything with avocado in it so I don’t know why they put it in this sandwich. That was just weird. I also got an iced coffee, and the cup was so filled with ice that it was done in two sips! $ 3 for two sips?!
Café Hestia overall impressed me and I think it’s one of the best lunch cafes in midtown west. Give it a shot!

Both Café Hestia locations are located right by my old job. I’d always come here for their amazing salad bar, filled with fresh and unique choices. Whatever I was craving, I could satisfy at the salad bar. Not to mention the amount of Korean food choices they offer! The food is always so quick and they give you A LOT for the price you pay. This is definitely a great deli that offers so many options for lunch. If you need something grab ‘n go, I recommend Café Hestia.

After coming here almost daily for lunch — I have to give it to Café Hestia for consistently providing great food.
I mostly get the asian foods [soondubu (tofu soup), udon, or bibimbap] And also the grilled foods [yakiudon, bulgolgi rice box, japchae (stir fry glass noodles)]. All are delicious and made surprisingly well for a small chain café. Ingredients are always fresh, portions are great, and the taste is on par with sit down restaurants.
Is it going to be the best stir fry or korean food you eat? No, but for general café standards — it’s pretty good. Like I mentioned before — I used to squeeze myself through the crowds at Dukes (a few streets over) for lunch. No need to do that anymore as Café Hestia from my opinion, has much better food quality and taste compared to Dukes.
There’s also more seating and the overall store is still rather newly renovated. As far as I’ve seen, the counters, food bar, and prep areas are all really clean and spacious. The cashiers are also very nice despite being probably stressed and overworked during the lunch rush.
This is one of the few nyc lunch cafes in which the food really stands out and is consistently well made. Two thumbs up.

For every mundane comment I make about Café Hestia, I will supplement it with a very serious statistic from the World Health Organization. Just to keep things in perspective.
1) This place is way too big given its oddly unpopular location on a theater-​less street in the Theater District. Entire corners of this café’s kitchens were barren and closed. (There are 2 million deaths every year as a result of exposure to indoor smoke from cooking fuels.)
2) The design of this place is something between chic modernity and Euro nightclub. Nothing complements my panini and Diet Coke more than LED multi-​colored lighting, flashing against the slate wall. I think I’ll go take Molly now and have toilet sex in the bathroom with a brunette woman in leather pants. (88% of the diarrheal deaths are due to unsafe water, inappropriate sanitation and lack of hygiene.)
3) I asked for a coffee with milk and no sugar. I got a coffee with milk and sugar. (At the end of 2012, 35.3 million people were living with HIV.)
4) I wanted a cheese sandwich, but the man behind the counter said there were no cheese sandwiches. (842 million people in the world do not have enough to eat. This number has fallen by 17 percent since 1990.)
Now that I’ve ironically called attention to real world problems on Unilocal,I’ve proven two things: that I’m clever and conscientious. This enables me to think of myself as a good person without engaging in any good deeds.
In many ways, I am Café Hestia.

Good food for an honest price! I had a greek omelette. The potatoes weren’t hot enough.

You know how the fancy grocery stores have a deli with like soups and stir fry and a salad bar and some kind of buffet, with candy bars and chips and sodas you can impulse buy on the way to the register? This is that kind of deli. Except without the grocery store.
It’s fairly quick, fairly inexpensive, the tables are plentiful and the food is pretty alright. In a suburban strip mall, this would be par for the course, but in downtown NYC, it’s a nice little oasis of decency.