Flat whites and avo smash drawing New Yorkers in to embrace the Aussie cafe vibe.

By North America correspondent Zoe Daniel.

New Yorkers are falling for Australian-style cafes, complete with flat whites and smashed avocado.

It’s not just the good coffee and healthy, delicious food, according to Oliver Strand, a food critic who publishes in the New York Times.

Australian cafes also bring a different vibe to the Big Apple.

“With the audience in New York, I think it’s a welcome surprise,” he told 7.30.

“This is not as cold and mean a town as some people might think — it’s actually a very warm place.

“But it’s also a busy place, so to have these places to go for breakfast and a coffee is a novelty.

“It’s lovely, you know, it’s like having flowers and chocolates and a spa day or something like that.

“It’s not what you do in New York, you grab it, you go, you grab it, you throw it back. It’s very rush, rush.”

Bluestone Lane Coffee

Former AFL player turned merchant banker and now cafe owner Nick Stone set up Bluestone Lane Coffee with his wife, Alex.

“We’ve had our smash displayed in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue … it’s been a big success story,” he told 7.30.

“I just hope that Australia is linked to the avo smash and it’s not just adopted by other culinary cuisines and they claim it as theirs.”

Stone agreed with Strand about the atmosphere at Australian-owned cafes, and said that was the motivation behind opening Bluestone Lane.

“What we’re trying to bring here is an authentic Melbourne coffee and cafe experience,” he said.

“I missed, on the weekend, not being able to have the immersive Melbourne cafe experience, which is healthy food, progressive menu, fantastic coffee, the newspaper, and just really having some time to myself and with my wife.”

Toby’s Estate

There are thousands of coffee shops in New York and as many as 200 more open every week.

But American coffee culture has been more fuel-focused than lifestyle-focused, and in recent history has been heavily influenced by the mass-market Starbucks approach.

Allie Caran is the resident coffee educator at Toby’s Estate in Brooklyn.

In a country notorious for its bad brews, she’s on a campaign to teach Americans about Australian-style coffee.

“Starbucks cafes, they’re geared to a really different experience,” she told 7.30.

“It’s really fast consumption, they’re traditionally much larger beverages and I think that those experiences themselves are very insular experiences.”

Toby’s Estate is the brainchild of Adam Boyd, who convinced his friend Amber Jacobsen to help him start a coffee company in New York.

It’s half retail, half wholesale — they have a fifth outlet opening soon and they supply coffee to 200 clients.

“We don’t identify as an Australian coffee place at all, we’re a local Brooklyn roaster and we have upwards of 200 wholesales accounts, so we’re firmly making coffee for Americans,” Ms Jacobsen said.

“That being said, Adam and I grew up together in Australia, we’re Australian, so, yeah, we have some Australian eccentricities around the place because that’s what makes us different.

“We can’t let go of that — I mean, we open our mouths and it’s pretty obvious we’re Australian.”

Two Hands

Giles Russell is another member of the Australian cohort.

With Two Hands, he’s transplanted a version of his local Bondi coastal cafe into urban New York.

“We wanted to work together to tell the rest of New York, ‘hey, this is a different style of coffee, a different style of food and a different style of culture that you’re buying into’,” Mr Russell told 7.30.

“[In Australia] when you walked out your front door that was like the logical next step — I’m going to go to a cafe and get my flat white or my three-quarter flat white and the barista will know me, the owner will know me, I’ll be greeted, that will make me feel good, I’ll feel comfortable in here.

“I felt that was really missing in New York.”

Two Hands general manager Tim Burnett said while it was the coffee that initially turned heads, it’s the vibe that really captures New Yorkers.

“The coffee really amazes people, but I think good coffee is catching on in the US, and has been for a few years,” he said.

“But the culture, definitely, it does amaze people.

“They really enjoy coming in and having this really nice vibe, really casual vibe.”

“It’s a good experience, I think, for Americans.”

And for Australians it also means a trip to America can now include a decent coffee.

“Once Australians realised that they could bring what they know from home and that New Yorkers would respond, then it freed them to open Australian-style coffee shops,” Strand said.

“You didn’t have to adhere to any model or a US model, you could actually do what you want, you could put an avocado toast on the menu and it will fly out the door.”

Strand now places Aussie cafes next to what he calls the ‘unofficial embassies’ like British pubs and French bistros, that bring something from home to America.

“New York will always be New York, but it’s like a snapshot, it’s almost a postcard, of what you have in Australia,” he said.

And then there’s the accent.

“Americans love an Australian accent,” Strand said.

“So for somebody to say, ‘would you like a coffee’ in an Australian accent is like having somebody whisper a love poem in French in your ear.”

This article originally appeared on the ABC.