Doma Is a Cafe. Don't Let the Label Confuse You.
Croatian-inspired all-day dining in the neighborhood, with 4LW coffee and a yogurt bowl worth rerouting for
I'll be honest: I had to work out what Doma actually is before I could figure out how to write about it. Is it a coffee shop? A breakfast spot? They call themselves a cafe, which technically covers all of it, and after eating there enough times I've decided to take them at their word and stop asking the question.
Doma is Croatian in its DNA. The menu runs across the full day — avocado toast and breakfast sandwiches in the morning, soups and salads into the afternoon — but the things worth getting excited about are the Croatian classics that show up alongside the familiar format. Ćevapi, the grilled sausage served on cabbage salad with ajvar, a red pepper spread that does more work than most condiments are asked to do. These are the dishes that make Doma worth talking about in a city full of all-day cafes.
My personal order is the yogurt and granola, which sounds unassuming until it arrives. They use a thick Croatian yogurt, serve it with compote, and finish it with a Balkan olive oil that gives it a richness that has no right being as good as it is. I've thought about that bowl between visits more than I'd like to admit.
The coffee is 4LW, which is my favorite coffee in the city, and Doma does it justice. That last part matters more than it sounds. The barista is the final person in a long chain that runs from the farmer to the roaster to your cup, and it is genuinely easy to wreck the whole thing at the last step. The baristas at Doma don't. The coffee is pulled correctly and served with the kind of consistency that 4LW's beans deserve.
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