The bakery boom

why so many smart people are opening bakeries + the best sweet treats in NYC

7:45am on a Saturday morning in New York City is a very specific time. I like to define this time [and any other time that proceeds 8am on a weekend]: Bakery Time. What is Bakery Time? Well, this is the specific alarm that gets toggled on in order to wake up at a ridiculously early hour to fight for a sweet treat that will sell out unless that alarm is set the night before.

Bakery time happened this weekend when Lindsay Paulen and I embarrassed ourselves by heading to Sunnyside queens while the sun was literally still rising to try the highly sought after Kora Donuts. We both stood in a line that wrapped around the corner and verbally agreed that neither of us had stood in a line like this in so long, but that we had both been soooo eager to try these that it seemed like a good use of our Saturday.

The short is: the donuts were insane. More on that later. Did they warrant the line? I think so, maybe. But I can’t sit around and not think about the deeper meaning behind my behavior of propelling myself onto two trains after going to bed at 1am the night before in order to enjoy something so short lived.

I think the inputs behind the equation of losing 2 hours of sleep for a pastry I’ll consume in 3 minutes or less is rooted in a few things:

1. The recent volume in which a “new bakery” opens in NYC and is infiltrating every corner crack and crevice of your social media feed

2. The ‘little sweet treat’ is the edible version of doom scrolling

The quick bursts of dopamine that come with the reward of getting that raspberry almond croissant before it sells out as your “Friday treat” (that becomes a daily treat) for a hard week (or day) at work tastes juuuuuust like TikTok.

New York is also filled with too many overachievers who are quick to capitalize on consumer behavior, which is why smart people are probably choosing to open bakeries instead of tech companies. Why build yet another addictive algorithm when you can build a croissant that’s just as addictive? The influx of new hot bakeries on your feed that you feel like you have to try creates the familiar feeling of FOMO that doom scrolling perpetuates.

Being self aware and understanding the risks of my behavior is one thing, but it doesn’t mean I won’t be visiting my favorite sweet treat institutions below. Support small businesses, right?

The best sweet treat institutions:

I also am assigning line levels to these, 1 being walk right in and 10 being radio bakery if that makes any sense.

1. Kora Donuts

🏘️ Sunnyside, Queens︱Line level: 10

I couldn’t tease you guys by talking about Kora above without giving more specifics. This Filipino owned donut shop in Sunnyside, Queens started out as one of those Instagram businesses where you had to check their stories for the weekly menu drop and you’d go to click on the link and it would crash immediately because 754 other people were also clicking on that same link.

They’ve now opened an impressive brick and mortar that has become the weekend staple of the same 754 people that I saw lined up last Saturday. Once we reached the entrance, we saw an employee with a sign that read “sold out, sorry” that we swore he’d turn around right before we entered. We somehow made it into the club and the selection was still grooving- crullers dripping with matcha glaze, oozing ube donuts, a cheesy donut, a flan donut topped with a full-on flan…the world was our oyster. Each person is allowed 5 donuts each, no repeats. We each filled our quota getting 5 different donuts to sample all of the the creative Filipino inspired flavors.

My personal favorites were the ube babka, matcha cruller, and flan, which set me up with a sugar buzz for a day of hanging out in Queens.

2. Dolly’s

🏘️ Bed-Stuy︱Line level: 3

I’ve written about the ice cream at Dolly’s before, but wanted to take a damn minute to highlight the baked good selection here because it deserves some air time. The owners Autumn and Brian are unapologetically doing things their way which is why each and every bite of what they produce brings so much feeling in addition to flavor. The sticky toffee banana bread has its own specific packaging and utensils to ensure it stays warm and gooey, which would never dare to be mixed in with the ube morning bun which is best enjoyed room temperature with a few napkins to wipe off the purple fairy dust that will surely be all over your fingers and mouth after correctly enjoying.

The essential way to enjoy Dolly’s is: stay awhile when you’re over here- go on a warm day, preferably a tiny bit hungover, sip one of their above average iced coffees, sit outside on one of their picnic tables, get a savory bite to wash down hunks of the best chocolate chip cookie in the city (that you’re randomly eating at like 10am)- I recommend the chopped cheese BEC with the hash brown on the side. Dolly’s really does it all.

3. Bạn Bè

🏘️ Cobble Hill︱Line level: 7

Bạn Bè is a Vietnamese-American bakery tucked behind a tiny unmarked royal blue window on a timid side street in Cobble Hill. One of the best weeks of my life was spent in Hanoi, Vietnam where I was ever so spoiled with Vietnamese delicacies and knew I would be seeking out such as soon as I got back to the city.

One of the reasons that the owner, Doris Hồ-Kane, opened Bạn Bè was due to the lack of Vietnamese bakeries in New York, and it since has lines down the block in all seasons of the year with folks lined up to try their honeycomb cake and tin of pastel hued cookies. Once you get up to order, everything comes right out of the walk up window (that practically looks like the window of someone’s residential brownstone), and there’s no interior. I remember being there, sipping my hot Vietnamese coffee trying to warm up while still waiting for my honeycomb cake, and decided to open my cookie tin which literally looked like a box of jewels in the winter sun. I also vividly remember my first bite of the cake- flavors of pandan laced throughout the webbed green texture, all softened by the condensed milk that I was instructed to pour on top.

4. La Cantine

🏘️ Bushwick︱Line level: 4

This is not the first time I’ve written about La Cantine, and it certainly isn’t my last. You come for the charm of what feels like a 70’s kitchenette and stay for the most whimsical confections from their head baker, Thea Gould, who is a true artist and one of the only bakers that could make me accidentally order a slice of cake with frosting at 9am with my coffee. The fun doesn’t stop at breakfast, please have dinner here and be delightfully surprised by their creative dessert options that change every single week- you can expect something along the lines of a flamingo pink rhubarb tiramisu, or an ice cream sundae cake that has no ice cream.

La Cantine is so special to me that I actually had Thea make a batch of the sundae cakes for my birthday party. I couldn’t envision myself celebrating another year of aging without eating these cakes slightly tipsy out of silver coupe glasses. And that’s why life is worth living.

5. Supermoon

🏘️ Lower East Side︱Line level: 6

I lived a few blocks away from Supermoon my first two years in the city and was never jumping up and down to go. Why? Well, I admittedly misjudged their stark minimalist interior and neon smiley face sign for something that it wasn’t- it just felt very sharp and not at all welcoming which is the usual introduction I’m looking for when checking out a new bakery. I decided to take a chance on Supermoon a few years later after I had already moved away from the eastside and regret my decision for not picking that as my home-base croissant when I was in the area…it’s a damn good one. Their menu also changes seasonally and has a few savory options- the scallion pancake croissant with a kimchi jam and focaccia pizza are two notable favorites.

When the ube ice cream sandwiches appear on the summer menu, this is a line I’ll tell you with confidence to wait in. You’ll have difficult time getting the chilling sensation of biting into their pandan ice cream between two freshly baked ube blondies out of your mind for quite a long time. I’m still getting vivid flashbacks.

6. Confectionary!

🏘️ East Village︱Line level: 2

I was lured into Confectionary on my way home from an Avea Pilates class in the East Village because I (as the behavior in this newsletter reads) wanted to reward myself with a “little sweet treat” after class on a Sunday. I didn’t do reformer lunges for nothing. The tiny cakes in the window that looked like wedding cakes made for a marriage between the Tompkins Square rats and pigeons caught my eye and were soon being devoured alongside those same rats and pigeons on a park bench. The tiny cake was so good that I had no idea it was even vegan until a week later when I went to tag the bakery on Instagram.

I also have a few close friends and family members that are vegan, so I’ve always had a roster of good vegan/dairy free places in the files of my brain ready to play when they come up to New York to visit me, and this is one I recommend to both vegan and non vegan friends- it’s really just that good.

7. COPS Donuts

🏘️ West Village︱Line level: 3

I saw troves of dudes with sunglasses and the quintessential nolita dirtbag denim walking out of a chrome colored storefront and thought it was yet another vintage store or coffee shop that would become the westside epicenter for these particular folk. As soon as I noticed that they were holding boxes of donuts I decided to make a sharp right and see if the store was giving out free food or something for an opening party. The “vintage store” turned out to be a donut shop, and not just any donut shop, a mini donut shop.

I swear the mini treat trend (Dunkin Donuts munchkins, Baked by Melissa cupcakes, …you get the point) is both genius and dangerously close to capitalizing on disordered eating, but the donuts at COPS are the perfect level of piping-hot-petit so you can try all flavors, like their sesame chili, coconut cream, and tiramisu without feeling sickly. You also get to walk right out and around town with your donuts in a pink zebra to-go bag, which probably accounts for some of the cool-kid crowd it attracts, alone.

Buzzy bakeries also worth the hype:

Elbow, Radio, Hani's, Mary O's

1. Elbow Bread- trendy, but phenomenal. Their coconut danish and cinnamon pretzel fresh out of the oven move mountains for my mental health.

2. Radio Bakery- I don’t even feel like writing about it because it’s so damn popular that people in New Zealand are messaging me on Instagram asking if they should go on their summer trip (but it is ridiculously good)

3. Hani’s- The cosmic brownie is fudgy and fantastic, I wish Sabrina Carpenter’s visit here didn’t make the lines 40x worse, but girl deserves her cinnamon roll too

4. L’Apartment 4f- Bowing down always to the cross section of their plain croissant

5. Mary O’s scones- a line level 10 place that is worth it for people who love a hot scone at a high tea

Independent bakers I love getting treats from:

1. Aimee France- I somehow scored the last strawberry matcha mini-cake from one of her pop-ups and have been an avid admirer and pop-up stalker stalker since

2. Kinda Cute Kinda Ugly- (Owned by Laila) also has precious mini cakes and made a perfect birthday cake for a friend of mine. She also does something called “sunday slices” where she pops up all over town to sell singular slices of cake and donates a certain % to local charitable efforts

Where are your favorite spots to get sweet treat dopamine?