About The Pastry Box, now open on 12th Street

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy 

The Pastry Box had its soft opening on Monday at 515 E. 12th St. between Avenue A and Avenue B. 

Brooklyn native Tiara Bennett is the chef-owner...

"I spent my entire life in the kitchen in some way or another," she told us. "My love of combining food with art, adventure, culture, love, and family was why I decided to attend the International Culinary Center [formerly known as the French Culinary Institute]."

After graduation, she worked in several kitchens (Tao Group, Union Square Hospitality, and Cafe Boulud and Restaurant Daniel with the Dinex Group).

However, her affinity for "classic pastry" won out.

"I then decided to combine the complex flavor profiles I learned with my love for the basics, and The Pastry Box was formed." 

And on June 19, 2020, with her best friend in tow, Bennett started selling baked goods outside her Brooklyn apartment.

Bennett realized her dream of running her own brick-and-mortar shop earlier this year when she signed the lease for this space...

The shop offers a variety of muffins, cookies, tarts, scones, cupcakes, housemade jams and nut butter, granola, doughnuts ... and will eventually add bread into the rotation. They also serve Oval Coffee.

"The mission with The Pastry Box is to offer high-quality pastry and dessert products without the need to go to a fine dining restaurant," Bennett said. "Our motto is 'classic favorites, premium flavors.' We want to start programs educating the youth in our community on proper kitchen etiquette and simple baking techniques."

The Pastry Box hours: 

Thursday-Saturday: 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. 

Sunday: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

Monday: 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

Closed on Tuesday and Wednesday

You can follow the bakery on Instagram. The Pastry Box website is coming soon here.

Search for bakeries near me

SMØR Bakery photo by Vinny & O 

As reported earlier this week, SMØR cafe owners Sebastian Perez and Sebastian Bangsgaard have opened SMØR Bakery ... offering a variety of bread and pastries at 437 E. 12th St. between Avenue A and First Avenue.

And this is the latest bakery to open in the East Village. Earlier this summer, Nikita Richardson checked in with a piece for The New York Times titled A Three-Stop Bakery Crawl in the East Village.

She paid visits to 2022 newcomers Librae Bakery on Cooper Square and Lady Wong on Ninth Street ...  and La Cabra on Second Avenue (which opened this past Oct. 1). 

You can read the piece here for more on what these businesses have to offer.

Other newish (as of May) bakeries include Bake Culture, the Taiwan-based bakery chain that sells Asian and European pastries at 22 St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue. 

And you can always count on the sourdough and other items at C&B on Seventh Street... the baguettes and croissants at Le Fournil on Second Avenue... the croissants at Elisa's Love Bites on Ninth Street ... and wherever else you like.    

Brooklyn-based Bakeri now serving bread, croissants and coffee on East 6th Street

A photo posted by Bakerita NYC (@bakeritanyc) on Oct 15, 2016 at 6:37am PDT

The owners of Bakeri, with locations in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, have just opened a cafe at 627 E. Sixth St. between Avenue B and Avenue C.

The East Village outpost — called Bakerita — carries Bakeri's homemade bread and pastries as well as Counter Culture Coffee.

And here's more about them, via the Bakeri website:

We opened in 2009 with the goal of bringing small batch, European-style bread to our community. We added a small café with homemade pastries and high-quality coffee. Our roots are from Northern Europe but our day-to-day changes depending on what we’re inspired by...

Bakerita is open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Friday; and 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekends.

New gluten-free Italian cafe in the works for East Fifth Street

Back in January, the nearly four-month-old Ballaro Bakery closed on East Fifth Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue... Now, as EVG contributor peter radley notes, another cafe is set to give the space a go...



As the sign shows, it will be something Italian. (Sorry.) The website listed isn't up and running yet... Perhaps this is related to Risotteria, the gluten-free Italian cafe and bakery over on West Bleecker...



Porchetta.Hog and Ballaro Bakery barely lasted in this space. Perhaps this place will break the losing streak.

[Updated] Bakery replaces Porchetta.Hog on East Fifth Street

Porchetta.Hog quietly opened on East Fifth Street just east of Second Avenue back in May... And by the beginning of September, they were temporarily closed, as Slum Goddess first noted.

Apparently that "temporary" is more permanent. Yesterday, a new bakery opened in its place. We stopped by, and found about eight kinds of bread baked on the premises and a few trays of cookies... The young man working didn't know much about what was happening here. He rather sheepishly admitted that he didn't even know the name of the place. Maybe something with a G?

It was as if the new owner had his nephew watch the place for 5 minutes while he ran an errand...

As far as we could gather for now, the place will sell bread and cookies and eventually add more items, such as sandwiches...

And we bought a baguette of sorts ... for $1, which may not have been the right price. (He had a sheet of paper with prices in his pocket ...) But the bread was very good. And we'd go back.

Thanks to @SarahMShaker for the tip.

Updated 10:09 a.m.

Eater has a few more details, including their hours: 8 a.m. - 10 p.m. And the name: Ballaro.