One of the Upper East Side’s longest continually running businesses, Orwasher’s was founded by a Hungarian family in 1916. Today, it’s run by baker Keith Cohen, whose starters are spiked with different types of wine or lager. The shop is best known for its rugelach, pumpernickel bread, spelt loaves, jelly doughnuts, and black-and-white cookies, but don’t miss the sticky-bun babka, chocolate croissants, seeded bagels, glazed doughnuts, turnovers, or cherry cheese strudel — it’s some of the best in the city. Go early for the best selection.

Jim Lahey is the maestro who reminded a new generation of home bakers that long-fermented (“no-knead”) bread was as easy as it was satisfying. Though Lahey’s flagship location left Sullivan Street some years ago, its Chelsea home is bigger and churns out the same selection of Old World-style loaves. The potato flatbread pizza, sprinkled with rosemary and slick with grassy olive oil, is an instant favorite and shouldn’t be missed. Lahey, a master at natural starters and Italian doughs, also makes fabulous, delightfully messy bomboloni, overstuffed with jam or cream. Cookies, tarts, cakes, and panettone are also on offer, depending upon the season.

This Australian import landed in Nomad back in 2019 with its rustic sourdough and pastries — along with an avid following that sparked long waits in its early days. At the bakery, the artisanal breads are just part of the quality offerings, including peanut butter-and-jelly croissants, shakshuka danishes, and its popular sausage rolls. A second location is forthcoming.

A force, Paula Oland has been the head baker at Balthazar since 1999. Today, she runs the brand’s massive bakery operation in Englewood, New Jersey, but her products are found across the city and for retail sale at Balthazar’s Bakery on Spring Street in Soho. There, in a shop the size of a petit four, find Oland’s baguettes, miche, rye bread, ciabatta, focaccia, brioche, and croissants — the bakery sells thousands of croissants a day, so it’s safe to say they have the formula down. Meanwhile, Mark Tasker runs Balthazar’s pastry and dessert program, putting out thin puff-pastry frangipane tarts, fruit- and cheese-filled danishes, tall layer cakes, rolled mousses, stacks of cookies, and seasonal specials like mince pies in the winter and strawberry-rhubarb galettes in the spring. Despite the vast production, every single thing is worth a taste.

Friends from grade school, Bane Stamenkovic, Uliks Fehmiu, and Tole Zurovac grew up in the former Yugoslavia and moved to the U.S. just as their country’s government collapsed. In typical resourceful-immigrant fashion, they learned how to bake and started a business: Pain D’Avignon. Today, the main bakery operates out of Brooklyn, and its wholesale operation services hundreds of cafes and restaurants in the tri-state area. But anyone can buy a loaf, sweet danish, or cake at Pain D’Avignon’s stall inside Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side. The breads range from soft ciabattas to dense Old World-style loaves to sweet brioche buns. Pastry offerings include walnut croissants, not-too-sweet chocolate pistachio snails, sticky cinnamon buns, and a deep chocolate olive oil cake. Savory items put a fun spin on classics like the kouign amann; it gets spiked with salty cheese and seeds (the sweet version is also worth a sampling).

Roughly six years after Matthew Tilden closed his beloved Bed-Stuy bakery Scratchbread, the Brooklyn chef has returned with 7 Grain Army, a counter operation where the grits — but not the grains — from his first business live on. Everything at the bakery, down to the flour tortillas in its breakfast tacos, is decidedly gluten-free, but get there in the morning when the pastries and coffeecake are fresh and you might not even know the difference. 

Jacqueline Eng, formerly the head baker for the Altamarea Group, opened her Essex Street bakery in 2019 and has amassed a well-earned following for her inventive pastries and breads. The daily lineup includes “everything bagel” baguettes, slices of focaccia, loaves of “Lower East Side sourdough,” and an impressive number of danishes.

Baker Nora Allen first amassed a cohort of industry fans — Gem chef Flynn McGarry and Dame owners Ed Szymanski and Patricia Howard among them — while baking bread at other restaurants in NYC, including Roberta’s in Brooklyn. Since opening her own sunny little blue-framed space last fall, directly across the street from the southern tip of Seward Park on the Lower East Side, that fan base has exploded into a strong public following. Customers consistently wait in lines wrapped around the shop to get their hands on the bakery’s fragrant, tangy sourdough loaves and flakey, buttery croissants stuffed with whatever’s in season at the farmer’s market. The bakery is only open on the weekends, from Friday to Sunday. Plan to go early and stock up before they go on a scheduled break from August 27 to September 6.

Well before Dumbo was hip, in 2004, pastry chef Jacques Torres opened his first chocolate shop there, steps from the waterfront. Then, across the street, Hervé Poussot (who once made the desserts and bread at Le Bernardin) opened a bakery. Still one of the neighborhood’s favorite stops, Almondine is known for croissants that taste like the ones on every corner in Paris, and Poussot’s chocolate eclairs have a nice balance between crisp pastry and soft cream filling. The hazelnut raisin bread is a crowd favorite, and baguettes sell out early.

Zachary Golper and his wife and partner Kate Wheatcroft brought a new level of perfectionism to baked goods when they opened their first small shop in Boerum Hill in 2011. The crust on their loaves have always been, as the French say, bien cuit, or well-burnished — sometimes almost black on the edges — which is one mark of a skilled baker. Another is the the crumb, or bread’s interior, and Bien Cuit’s bread is held aloft by a dense network of bubbles, a result of the magic chemistry of wheat flour and yeast. Though Golper’s miche (large round whole-grain loaf made entirely with wild yeast) is one of the city’s best, and his baguette (with its sharply curved slits) one of the city’s most beautiful, the pastries he puts out, such as the sugared chocolate escargot, are equally lovely and unexpected. Executive chef Jeff Sytsma fills eclairs with orange cream, glazes them in glossy chocolate, and studs them with candied ginger. Don’t miss the sour-cherry ricotta tart basque, a buttery and rustic cross between a tart and a pound cake. A new outpost in Grand Central Terminal’s market serves the full selection of baked goods, too.

A civil engineer by trade, Peter Endriss pursued an obsession with baked goods to work under some of the best in the business, including noted NY pastry chef Francois Payard. Today, he’s one of the few bakers in the city that knows his way around artisan grains, and he churns out a tight collection of gorgeous breads and pastries each day. Even Runner & Stone’s take on classics like brownies and chocolate chip cookies feature grains such as rye and corn meal, respectively. His walnut levain has the signature pale violet hue (a reaction between the skin of the walnuts and the flour) and is full of walnut halves, meaning it’s impossible to take a bite without hitting a nut. In addition to the Gowanus bake shop and restaurant, Runner & Stone’s baked goods can be found at the Union Square Greenmarket on Saturdays and the Upper West Side farmers market on Sundays.