Lakou Cafe

A lakou, in Haiti, is the shared courtyard where a family's houses face one another and everyone ends up eating together. Cassandre Davilmar borrowed the word for the small, art-filled room she opened on Utica Avenue in 2018, and it has become exactly that for this part of Crown Heights: a place to linger over coffee in the morning and stay for a plate of food later on.

It is part café, part bakery, part Haitian kitchen, and about half the menu is vegan. Start with a flaky patty and a Haitian-spiced latte. For a full plate, the griot is the thing — the classic fried pork, or a jackfruit version that arrives with sos pwa, the black-bean sauce, and pikliz for heat. Ginger kava and fresh juices round it out.