Sambalatte (Boca Park)

Sambalatte is a Las Vegas coffee house that calls itself the home of coffee, and its Boca Park café in Summerlin is a comfortable place to spend an hour away from the Strip. Its motto, "Sip. Savor. Socialize.", sums up the style: this is a café for lingering over a drink with friends or a book rather than grabbing a cup on the run.

The menu covers the full range of espresso drinks, and speciality lattes are a strength, including chai, matcha and turmeric lattes. Loose leaf green tea and hot cocoa give non-coffee drinkers plenty of choice. To eat, the counter offers croissants, muffins and a cheese spiral, which is enough for a light breakfast. Sambalatte also sells its own beans, including its Samba Noir coffee and a 100 per cent Kona coffee, if you want to take some home.

The Boca Park café is open from 7am to 6pm from Sunday to Thursday and until 7pm on Friday and Saturday, so it works for breakfast, a mid-morning break or an afternoon coffee. A second café at the Molasky Center Downtown serves the business crowd on weekday mornings and is closed at weekends, and there is also a branch at Harry Reid International Airport, which is useful if you need a coffee before a flight.

Sambalatte suits locals, families and visitors staying in Summerlin or heading out towards Red Rock Canyon, which lies further west. It is a relaxed stop on a drive into the desert, and a good place to pick up drinks and pastries before a morning on the Scenic Drive. Prices are typical of an independent coffee house.

If you are driving out to Red Rock Canyon, stopping here first lets you pick up coffee and pastries before the long, shadeless stretches of the Scenic Drive.

Boca Park is a shopping centre on South Rampart Boulevard in Summerlin, on the western side of the Las Vegas valley. Most visitors will need a car, taxi or ride-share to get there from the Strip. The café is a good counterpoint to the resorts: you can see how residents spend a Saturday morning, and the surrounding shops and restaurants make it easy to turn a coffee stop into a longer outing.