Bánh by Lauren

Pandan through a French pastry lens

The counter at Bánh by Lauren runs on pandan, coconut, Vietnamese coffee and condensed milk, folded into French and American dessert forms rather than served the way they would be at home. The pandan coconut chiffon cake is the clearest signature, tall and light, and pandan bánh bò nướng sits next to it with a chewy, honeycombed texture that no standard cake slice offers. Chiffon also comes in Thai tea and Vietnamese coffee, which ties the pastry case to the drinks. Pandan coffee cakes and fried sesame balls widen the range into snacking territory, but the centre of the case holds steady. This is not a bread bakery; there are no daily loaves or sourdough, and the technique on show is restaurant pastry technique pointed at Southeast Asian flavours.

Two Bridges, a line and a Chinatown thread

The bakery grew out of a pandemic project. It started in 2020 as a home baking operation run by its founder after she left a pastry job at Gramercy Tavern, selling weekly bánh boxes that sold out within hours, then moving through pop-ups across the city before landing in a permanent shop on the Two Bridges and Chinatown line. That neighbourhood is not incidental: it is where she and her partner met, and the first area they lived in together after she moved from Seattle to New York, and a share of the weekly box sales went to a local Chinatown nonprofit. The line outside predates the storefront and still forms early. Inside, the room reads modern and bright rather than traditional, and the pastry case is the whole argument.

Start with the chiffon, then work outward

Order the pandan coconut chiffon cake first. It is the shorthand for the house style and the best single read on how pandan is used here: aromatic and green-tasting rather than perfumed. For contrast, add pandan bánh bò nướng for chew and fried sesame balls for a crisp exterior, then anything built on Vietnamese coffee and condensed milk if you want the sweeter, milkier register. Coffee is worth the extra minute, because the drinks side is run as a considered specialty programme that blends Vietnamese cafe habits with a modern approach; at one coffee event the team brought its own pandan syrup so guests could order pandan lattes and cappuccinos, which tells you how closely the two halves are wired together. The New York Times named the bakery to its 2024 list of the 22 best bakeries in the United States, but the pastries make the case on their own.