Whether you’re in need of a morning sammy or a sweet treat to end your night, New York is home to some of the best bakers around. So if you’re looking for a place to grab some of these amazing treats, check out these new york bakery cafes.
One of the oldest businesses in the Upper East Side, Orwashers has a loyal following for its traditional French breads and pastries. Be sure to go early for the best selection.
Breads
A bakery cafe is a great way to treat yourself or someone special to a slice of homemade bread. They offer an assortment of sourdough, yeasted loaves, sweet rolls, and even doughnuts, all made from scratch and served within hours of being baked.
New York Bakery Direct, a woman-owned bakery company, provides wholesale goods for hundreds of cafes and restaurants in the city. Their website offers an online ordering system for their baked-to-order breads and pastries, as well as their artisanal coffees.
Winners churns out crusty, tangy sourdough and fluffy cinnamon buns that are a popular choice among locals, as well as those on the go. The bakery also serves a range of seasonal doughnuts.
Despite opening their Essex Street market stand in 2019, Jacqueline Eng has amassed a strong following for her rustic sourdough and inventive pastries. The shop offers a range of breads, including “everything bagel” baguettes and slices of focaccia, as well as a large selection of danishes.
This small bakery combines Middle Eastern flavors with European technique. Its croissants are twisted into pretzels, and showered with poppy seeds, sesame seeds, and even creme brulee. Croissants stuffed with shakshuka are another must-try.
Paula Oland has been a force in the baking industry for nearly two decades. Her pain d’avignon, a mix of sourdough and rye breads, is sold in many cafes around the city. Her sourdough, made with wheat flour and rye, is one of the best in the city.
This New York-based bakery has an impressive collection of sourdough, brioche, and croissants. Their walnut levain is an absolute must-try, with its pale violet color that’s a result of the reaction between the walnuts and the flour. The shop also makes a wide variety of sandwiches, including the BEC, which consists of bacon, eggs, and cheese.
Frenchette
The team behind Frenchette has just opened a new bakery inside the old Arcade Bakery space on Church Street. With the help of longtime baker Peter Edris and pastry chef Michelle Palazzo, they’ve crafted a menu that includes six kinds of bread, a Roman-style pizza, and an expanded coffee selection from Nolita’s Cafe Integral.
The restaurant has kept much of the look and feel of Arcade, a popular Tribeca bakery that closed in 2019 but whose bread was lauded citywide. The bakery serves a variety of croissants and kouign-amann, as well as a few other specialties. The menu is dominated by sweets, with a pistachio croissant and dark chocolate croissant among the highlights.
It’s also worth a look for the savory items on offer, including gougere, an airy choux pastry dish that comes with comte cheese and is shaped like a square. For breakfast, the egg savories and pain au chocolat are worth trying.
For lunch and dinner, the duo has a plethora of artisanal loaves (including the sesame peasant), sandwiches, and pasta dishes. But the best part is that you can order a prepared meal for your fridge or freezer, which will give you something to look forward to when you’re not feeling up to cooking.
The menu isn’t all that big, but it does include some interesting foodie trinkets, from a cheesy, stuffed croissant to a kouign-amann gimmick. There’s also a surprisingly good egg salad and a pretty great egg sandwich that are worth checking out, especially if you’re in need of an energy boost. Ultimately, the most impressive thing about this bakery is its quality and the fact that it’s run by the team behind Frenchette.
Lahey
Sullivan Street Bakery, with its main location on West 47th Street in Hell’s Kitchen, has become known for Italian-inspired breads from bread master Jim Lahey. The bakery delivers bread to over 300 restaurants in New York City and the surrounding area. In addition to the bread, Sullivan Street also serves savory Roman-style pizzas, rustic Italian pastries and cookies.
The baker’s caramelized sourdough loaves, with an intense outside crust and pillowy interior, have made a name for themselves around town. He opened Sullivan Street Bakery in 1994 with the help of restaurateur Joe Allen.
Lahey’s popular, Italian-inspired flavors and fresh loaves quickly earned him a place on the competitive baking map. He has since shared his no-knead method with the world and earned a first-ever James Beard Foundation award for outstanding baker.
After years of scraping by in Williamsburg, Lahey decided to bake bread full time and open Sullivan Street Bakery in 1994 with restauranteur Joe Allen’s backing. Sullivan Street soon became a fixture on New York’s artisanal bread scene, and Lahey shared his no-knead technique in 2006.
Today, Sullivan Street delivers bread to over 300 restaurants around the city and the surrounding area. In addition to the traditional loaves, Sullivan Street offers multigrain breads, seasonal tarts and pastries, and mouthwatering sandwiches.
In recent years, Sullivan Street has expanded its retail presence by opening a second location two doors down from Co. (Lahey says he’s still considering bringing a restaurant to the space), a pizzeria, and a bakery in Miami.
Despite the challenges of running multiple businesses, Lahey continues to produce bread and recipes, art, and trouble in equal proportions. You can find his latest output on Instagram at @jimlaheyssb.
7 Grain Army
Seven Grain Army, a new neighborhood bakery from the team behind Bed-Stuy’s beloved Scratchbread, could open as early as next month. Matthew Tilden and Jeffrey Olsen, both former Scratchbread staffers, are opening a new bakery in Williamsburg that will focus on grains.
The bakery is slated to open at 88 Roebling Street in the coming months, and followers can get a look at what it’s all about by following their Instagram account for updates. The bakery will offer a variety of baked goods, but the main draw is the muffins called MuFins. These muffins are made with a mix of “true” grains, and each one is moist, dense, and jam-packed with flavor.
Each muffin is topped with a spread that varies from whipped lemon tahini to pecan maple butter and jam, as well as smoked whitefish. The menu also includes breakfast tacos and tortilla breakfast wraps, which are available with or without coffee brewed with beans from Parlor Roasters.
7 Grain Army isn’t just about gluten-free baking; it’s about creating a healthier relationship with food. The owners say their goal is to encourage customers to make purposeful, healthy choices that will help them live long and happy lives.
Tilden and Olsen parted ways after Scratchbread closed but reconnected soon after, working together on a number of consulting projects including the menu at Maya Congee Cafe in Bed-Stuy and a Vietnamese-inspired selection at High Low Beverage Company in Bushwick. This time around, they’re focusing on a more focused menu that emphasizes whole grains and healthy alternatives to popular fast foods.
The 7 Grain Army menu will include everything from hot breakfast items to sandwiches and pizzas, with an emphasis on whole grains like fonio and brown rice. They’ll also sell packaged goods, such as granola bars and elixirs. Tilden and Olsen are fundraising to open the bakery through Mainvest, a micro-investing website that allows investors to invest in small amounts of money. They’ve raised more than $57,500 so far from locals and followers who’ve invested in their project.
Winners
The list of winners at this Park Slope bakery cafe, run by Daniel Eddy and his pastry chef Ali Spahr, includes crusty sourdough loaves, fluffy cinnamon rolls, and doughnuts made with seasonal ingredients. They also offer breakfast sandwiches that are a great way to start the day, like a BEC (bacon, egg and cheese) or a smoked salmon everything croissant, as well as serious lunch fare such as a vegetable bahn mi with shaved radish or an elevated grilled cheese with Jasper Hill Farm Alpha Tolman, cheddar, provolone, romesco and more.
During the day, Winner sells pastries and bread on a set schedule through a takeout window on 11th Street. But if you want to be one of the first to get a fresh loaf, you’ll have to get there early and wait in line.
When you do, the sourdough, rye and whole wheat loaf craze is in full swing, with crowds waiting to grab slices of ciabatta, sourdough baguettes, and other rustic breads. And if you’re feeling more ambitious, you can try one of their homemade pies or cakes.
The restaurant is still in its early stages, but it already has a cult following among locals and foodies alike for the high-quality breads and baked goods it serves. In fact, many of the bakery’s best sellers are sold out throughout the day — a sign that the owners plan to expand the menu in the future. The space is also hosting rotating family meals with chefs from around the city, such as Connie Chung of Eleven Madison Park’s Make It Nice Group and Melissa Weller of High Street on Hudson, who both cook in the evening.
