Kora

Two doughnuts explain Kora. Both start as fried brioche: one is filled with leche flan made from a family recipe, the other is built on ube. The Filipino bakery grew out of an online and pop-up operation before taking its first permanent storefront in Sunnyside.

Pastry built on family memory

Kora is led by chef and co-owner Kimberly Camara, a Filipino-American pastry chef, with co-owner Kevin Borja, a Brooklyn native, running operations. The case is rooted in family memory: a handwritten recipe from Camara’s late grandmother is the source of the Leche Flan donut, the item the bakery is best known for, made with fried brioche dough and filled with leche flan made in house. The Ube donut uses the same fried brioche base and comes out of Camara’s childhood. The rest follows the same path, Filipino flavours and Filipino desserts translated into a compact, highly personal pastry programme rather than a general sweets case.

From preorders to a Sunnyside counter

The bakery had an audience before it had a room. Kora ran on preorders and pop-ups first, so the storefront arrived to serve a following that already existed, and it was designed as much to be a gathering place as a shop. That history still shapes a visit: demand-led, closer to a boutique counter than a browse-and-linger bakery, with the pastry programme carrying the personality. The move from an online operation to a permanent Sunnyside address gave the bakery a neighbourhood role it did not have before, and the counter now works for regulars and for people who travelled in for one specific doughnut.

Order the leche flan first, then the ube

Start with the Leche Flan donut, the item most directly tied to Kora’s reputation and to Camara’s family story. It combines fried brioche with leche flan made in the bakery, so it is both a technical pastry and a tribute. The Ube donut should come next, since it is the other bestseller and uses the same base, which makes the pair a useful comparison. After those, look at the wider counter: coffee, tea, cookies, croissants, danishes, cakes and breads. The reason to order across categories is not breadth for its own sake but to see how Filipino flavours carry beyond the two doughnuts that made the name. Croissants and danishes show the counter’s expanded ambitions; cookies, cakes and breads place it in a broader neighbourhood bakery format.