Radio Bakery

Lamination in waves

Pastries at Radio Bakery arrive in waves and sell out, which is the most useful thing to know before joining the line. Croissants lead the morning, other pastries follow, focaccia slices come out later, and lunch sandwiches land after that. It is retail only, so the case is the whole show.

Kelly Mencin opened the bakery in Greenpoint in 2023 and added a Prospect Heights branch in 2025. The identity is laminated pastry, seasonal croissants and focaccia sandwiches. A summer tomato croissant pushed the bakery into wider view, but the durable anchors are the Pistachio Croissant, the Earl Grey Morning Bun, the Smoked Salmon Focaccia Sandwich and the Sesame Scallion Twist. Mencin took the James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker in 2024, the same year the bakery landed on the New York Times list of the country's 22 best, and it ranks 54th on Opinionated About Dining's 2026 Cheap Eats list for North America.

A bakery built for bakers

Mencin arrived with serious training: Bouchon Bakery in California, then Bouchon Bistro, then two years cooking at Gramercy Tavern in New York. In January 2020 she joined the pre-opening team at Rolo's, working through recipe testing and the pandemic pivot toward sandwiches, focaccia and desserts. Radio followed a car-ride conversation with one of the restaurateurs behind that project, who asked whether she wanted a bakery of her own.

The mission goes past viral pastry. Mencin frames Radio as a response to shrinking opportunities for pastry chefs in New York restaurants, where dedicated pastry departments are hard to sustain. Bakers work in production and at the counter, which gives them guest contact and access to tips, and Prospect Heights gave the team room to grow into leadership. The original Greenpoint space was compact, with shared dough and oven capacity shaping what could be made; Prospect Heights was designed for visibility and volume, with a rotating oven and an open layout where guests watch dough divided and shaped. The line moves toward the counter and out the door, often toward a picnic in Prospect Park.

Start with pistachio, then go savoury

The Pistachio Croissant is the defining order, double-baked and built for architecture, crunch and a rich filling. The Earl Grey Morning Bun has been there since day one, made with real ground Earl Grey and citrus sugar, then adjusted with more butter and sugar for texture. Seasonal croissants rotate: apple brown butter with dark brown butter custard and thin apple slices in autumn, plus tomato, rhubarb custard, blueberry coconut lime, passion fruit and maple sausage across the year.

Then move savoury. The Smoked Salmon Focaccia Sandwich reworks a lox bagel with cream cheese, pickled onion, dill and everything-spice focaccia on a lighter base. The Sesame Scallion Twist reads like a garlic knot with onion and sesame. A shakshuka focaccia slice with spiced tomato, baked eggs and sumac, a bacon egg and cheese focaccia, a roasted mushroom croissant, turkey with pesto and kale, spicy tofu with chilli crisp, and burrata with prosciutto fill out the rest.