Arcade Bakery
“Some would compare the almond croissant to really good sex, but I actually think it comes closer to a really good hallucination.”
“you could easily walk by this little bakery spot hidden in an office building with a very inconspicuous sign out front.”
“A big bite for this crunchy-on-the-outside, slightly-chewy-on-the-inside baguette.”
Arcade Bakery
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range Moderate
8 reviews
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Dreadful people — unwelcoming and unfriendly… Dismal customer relations — meaningless and inconsistent policies… Painfully slow service — long lines that never move… I was hoping this could be my local, frequent, favorite bakery — not happening…
True hidden gem! Best baguettes in NYC freshly baked every day and so are the pastries. My absolute fave is the almond chocolate croissant it's absolutely heaven. Nice spot to sit and talk and customer service is on point staff is always friendly and accommodating.
Absolutely gorgeous space, super friendly staff, and delicious baked goods and sandwiches. A bit pricey though. I got a ham and cheese sandwich and a smore danish. The sandwich was pretty large and came on a baguette. It was wonderful! The smore danish was gooey and yummy. I left full and satisfied. It's definitely a popular spot!!
The seating is really pretty, classy, and minimalist. There are no chairs or tables, but you sit along the wall (hard to explain but you can see in photos) and platforms come down from the wall to serve as tables.
I saw this place in a very cool book I ordered called "New York: Hidden Bars & Restaurants" (highly recommended). It is in the first floor hallway of an office building and while that is unique, this is not a bakery that has to rely on that as a gimmick, because the baked items here are off-the-charts. You can not go wrong with anything you get here. A crying shame it is so out of the way for me.
Food & Pastries 5 // Service & ambiance 3
Stopped by for lunch one day with some friends and ordered sandwiches and a few sweets.
I got the zucchini sandwich and it was delicious — the flavors were interesting and slightly sweet but it keep me biting off more and more! The bread, however, was the star of the show and it was so, so very fresh. The portion is large; I was ale to save half of it for a light dinner two days after and it still tasted as fresh as when I had it straight from the bakery.
For sweets we got the smores danish, berry bread pudding and almond croissant.
The smores danish was OUT OF THIS WORLD… I have never had anything like it. I was afraid that it would taste somewhat like a smores poptart (just pure sugar and a weird marshmallow texture) but the marshmallows tasted "real" in the sense they were like actual toasted marshmallows rather than marshmallow fluff. The chocolate was perfectly soft (even though the pastry was not heated) and the danish pastry part was a bit stiffer…reminiscent of a graham cracker but softer.
The berry bread pudding was a piece of bread with that eggy bread pudding texture right in the middle + speckled with berries. Definitely not as sweet as the other two desserts but satisfying nonetheless. The crust on the bread is so wonderfully crunchy and sweet — a denser, more filling alternative to an afternoon sweet treat
Lastly, the almond croissant was AMAZING. SO flaky and buttery. But fluffy at the same time. Words cannot even describe the texture! The almond mix inside was perfectly sweet and definitely set the croissant apart. Would be amazing with some black coffee in the morning.
All in all — the food is not only fresh but innovative flavor-wise. Will definitely be coming back to try the pizza & other pastries. The service was nothing out of the ordinary and the set up of the place is a bit confusing — wish there was an actual ambiance here but it is basically like entering an office building. It is inside a building (very easy to miss, its the first building right at the corner of Thomas and Church. The prices were on the pricier side but the portions were larger than what I am used to at other bakeries. Great experience definitely try it out!
When I was growing up, my mother used to make me sandwiches for lunch. She was a very hard working woman who did her best to put a roof over the kids heads and made sure we were never hungry. Being as busy as she was, she didn't always have the time to make the fanciest sandwiches or come up with a diverse meal plan for us. We were on a budget. Lunch for school was often simply ham and cheese in between two slices of white bread.
I ate that for years. Or at least I tried to. Unless I was extremely hungry, sometimes I would just throw the sandwich away. I'm not sure what type of ham she would get for these sandwiches, but eventually, I just couldn't eat ham anymore. I think I told my mother to stop making these sandwiches for me and she never did again. I was a very unappreciative kid. To this year, I've never willfully ordered ham of any kind (bacon, pork belly, and the kind are a different story).
Fast forward 12-13 years later, and I'm told about one of the best bakeries in New York City–Arcade. Deciding on what sandwich to get, I wanted something on their famous baguettes. But when I read the menu, I saw the ingredients in the sandwich… cheese, butter, and… ham.
Not wanting any other type of bread for my sandwich, I swallowed my old hatred for ham. After snapping pictures of this plain looking sandwich, I delve in. A big bite for this crunchy-on-the-outside, slightly-chewy-on-the-inside baguette. My teeth sunk in getting into each layer. First into the subtle butter. Then into the cheese and the HAM simultaneously…
The harmony of all four simple ingredients in my mouth had me wondering what I was eating. Was this how sandwiches were supposed to taste.. with HAM??? This could possibly be the only ham sandwich I can ever eat again.
Now, I understand what my mother had to do to feed three children at the same time while holding down a full-time job, working overtime, and trying to get her degree at the same time… This sandwich made me appreciate that. It brought back memories of sandwiches I ate for years and threw away for years.
Thank you, Mom, for all your sacrifice and thank you Arcade Bakery for helping me appreciate her.
I should have listened to Youngest Sis when she recommended this bakery to me. She had the street cred. After 911, she delivered to me 3 batches of biscotti, beauties made from that divine chocolate, Valrhona. I ate 47 of them in one weekend. Following are a few reasons I have to apologize to sis and make up for lost time:
S'Mores Danish-this is another masterpiece, seemingly so simple to put together and yet complex when you eat it. Bittersweet chocolate is smartly paired to cut the cloying sweetness of toasted marshmallow, the taste of the two balanced. The pleasant surprise is the crunch that comes after your teeth pass the marshmallow, then the chocolate, and meet the layers of laminated dough, right before the buttery pastry. I wondered how Gural made this. If he baked the pastry first, and layered the chocolate and marshmallow after, he magically managed to keep the crispness in the exterior. I pondered the technique after one bite, then promptly devoured it. Some lucky customers have eaten it hot out of the oven. The first time I went, I was told a customer cleaned them out and bought forty. Easy to understand why. I could eat a tray of this myself. I gave one to Oldest Sis. She sent me two emails, saying she liked it. In Older Sis code, it means, "Get more".
Chocolate Bread-I can already tell after eating this that Arcade's breads are going to be dangerous. Arcade Bakery's pastries are too rich for me to eat more than one(well, maybe two) in a day. But the bread, I can eat that for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This bread packs a few delightful surprises. The crust is soft, not hard and crispy as in many chocolate breads. The doughy inside is like the baguette, tender, moist and with that same airy quality. Another wondrous touch were the diced orange peels in this bread. I dug out one of the minute pieces; it was only slightly sweet, seemed more preserved than candied. Then I dug out one of the small pieces of chocolate. A smooth, dark chocolate, without a strong smell and not in large chunks. The almonds are whole, toasted, fresh and crunchy. I put my nose to the velvety bread and smelled yeast, not the cocoa I expected, or the expresso powder I was sniffing for. Gural loves his bread so much, he does not let any added ingredient dominate the taste of his bread. But he has mastered baking alchemy, along with matchmaking ingredients. When I ate the bread as the sum of all its parts, the orange and almonds accentuated the cocoa and chocolate and a wonderfully addictive chocolate bread emerged. I almost ate half the loaf in one sitting. My bff showed more restraint, but raved about this bread too.
Almond chocolate croissant: Another rich creation. The layers crackle not as sharply as with the almond croissant, perhaps because the filling was a wetter paste, a mix of the almonds and sugar and melted chocolate and whatever goodness Gural bakes in. I expected a more intense chocolate flavor. This one tasted more like an almond cream with chocolate flavor. A lovely breakfast pastry, but the plain almond one I thought surpassed it in texture and taste. But don't shie from buying this. It is delicious.
Caramel apple brioche: A pretty ring of brioche with apple pieces on top, this pastry caught my eye at the first encounter. Gural, I realize, doesn't permit one ingredient to overpower another but understands how well they complement each other. First, I like to nibble on his ingredients separately to taste them. Tasted singly, each piece of the brioche was good, not remarkable. But when the browned apples(caramelized in sugar and browned butter?) is eaten with the bread portion of the brioche, transformation into wonderful occurs with each bite. I also loved that there wasn't even a hint of cinnamon in it.
Lemon sugar brioche- I didn't try this but bought it for Oldest Sis, who said it tasted like an overpriced lemon danish. But sis, you must understand, likes an artisanal pastries as well as a cheap, processed supermarket pie. If it's like the other products from Arcade, I am sure it is very excellent.
I know I love this place after writing a super long review that I had to put out in three parts.
Live your life without regret. Visit this bakery pronto.
OMG. When I read about Arcade Bakery in a NY Times article I was like ahhh I need to try this.
Thankfully my wishes came true sooner than I thought. My husband works in the building sooo I made him get me a croissant.
And. It. Was. The. Best. Croissant. Of. My. Life.
I have also heard that they have a sick chocolate danish but have yet to try it.
This hole in the wall bakery is a rare find.