New York bakeries: patties, breads, cakes and where to find them

Where to buy Jamaican patties, hardo bread, pan, tres leches and celebration cakes across New York. Every bakery with its own phone number to call ahead.

A lot of New York's food actually starts at a small bakery: the patty you grab on the way to the train, the coco bread for Saturday, the cake somebody ordered a week out for a party. The trick with an independent bakery is knowing what it is built for before you walk in, and calling ahead for anything that has to be made to order.

What each kind is best at

• Caribbean bakeries are the ones for beef and chicken patties, coco bread, hardo and hard dough bread, currant rolls and rum or black cake. The patties move fast and the best ones are gone by early afternoon.
• West African bakeries do meat pies, puff puff, chin chin and celebration cakes, and some bake fresh bread daily.
• Latin bakeries and panaderías cover pan dulce, tres leches, quesitos and cakes to order.
• Everyday bakeries handle the loaves, rolls and slab cakes you pick up without ordering ahead.

Bakeries across New York

In Brooklyn

In Queens

Ordering a cake or a large order

For anything custom, call the bakery directly, give the date, the size and the flavor, and ask how much notice they need and what the deposit is. Weekends and holidays fill first. The number on each page is the bakery's own, so you are talking to the people who will actually bake it.

Written by See The Five · kept current from the directory, last checked 2026-10-22