Lee Lee's Baked Goods

Rugelach, rolled by hand in Harlem

Rugelach is not a side item at Lee Lee’s Baked Goods; it is the whole argument. Alvin Lee Smalls, known around the neighborhood as Mr. Lee, has been baking it in Harlem since 1988, and the bakery still describes itself in the plainest terms: handmade in Harlem, fresh and all natural, a local tradition. The story runs further back than the shop. Smalls moved to New York in 1962 and met rugelach for the first time in 1964, then spent 29 years in kitchen roles at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Before he opened his own place he was already making rugelach professionally on Amsterdam Avenue, at Marion Smalls Bakery, named for his father. Raspberry, apricot and chocolate are the fillings that carry the name.

A small counter under a candy cane awning

The shop is compact, marked by a candy cane-striped awning, and the Harlem setting is part of why people make the trip. It sits in the Harlem of Langston Hughes, blocks from where Malcolm X spoke to a generation of activists, and it keeps the rhythm of a bakery counter rather than a café. Smalls starts at 5:30 each morning so the rugelach is fresh when the door opens, and the supply is finite: a single tour group has been known to buy out a morning’s worth, sending later arrivals back another day for a baker’s dozen. There is no long composed menu to work through. The main event is a tray of pastry rolled by hand a few hours earlier.

Order raspberry first, then work across the fillings

Raspberry is the cleanest first order, one of the three named specialties alongside apricot and chocolate. The shape is worth noticing before you eat: these are cookie-round pieces with swirled strokes through them rather than the croissant-like crescents most New York bakeries turn out, made the old-fashioned way and by hand. The detail that matters most is butter. Smalls is one of the last commercial bakers in New York making rugelach with butter instead of vegetable shortening, which ties the pastry to the older Jewish and Eastern European bakery traditions of the city and gives it a shorter, richer bite. The house calls it Lee Lee’s Legendary Rugelach and sells it by the piece or in gift tins of 26, with cakes and other pastries filling out the case. Order across all three fillings if you can: raspberry for brightness, apricot for the deeper fruit, chocolate to finish.