J’adore…

I’ve walked by the antique-y tea salon with its rusted aluminum lawn chairs and wabi-sabi storefront for four years now, promising myself I would go sometime. This morning, I finally indulged at Thé Adoré.

While a lot of New York bakeries make their goods in-house—resulting in fresh and delicious pastries—there’s something different when the in-house kitchen is small. Everything tastes like you baked it at your own place. Except you didn’t have to go to the supermarket for flour, or mix the ingredients until your bicep ached, or wash the dishes afterward.

Adore’s “cupcakes” are more like muffins… which is why I could justify having them for breakfast. And there's really no excuse for having two, like I did, when one will suffice, except they were still just barely warm— that perfect temperature that smacks of freshness—and they had two of my favorite flavors: banana and raspberry.

The banana flavor is just a dense, mushy, happy blend of cake and banana. The raspberry cupcake offers a sweet gooey texture with the little seeds popping between your molars like raspberry jam. It's hard to say which is better. Both.

And they’re super buttery, which is a good or bad thing, depending on your predilections. You can smell the butter (yay), taste the butter (yay), but the butter leaves a little grease on your fingertips (nea).

17 East 13th Street between Fifth and University
212.243.8742