The Pastry Box

New York, NY

Address

515 E 12th St, New York, NY, 10009

Phone

(646) 429-8717

Website

thepastrybox.co

About The Pastry Box

The Pastry Box is a flagship bakery born out of the pandemic era, now operating as a full storefront with plans to grow further. New York native chef and owner Tiara Bennett spent her entire life in the kitchen, drawn to combining food with art, adventure, culture, love, and family. That passion led her to study at the International Culinary Center, formerly known as the French Culinary Institute, where she honed her skills before working in the kitchens of several Michelin-starred establishments. The Pastry Box serves as a canvas for Tiara's love of classic pastry favorites paired with complex, thoughtfully developed flavor profiles, reflecting the training and experience she built over years in professional kitchens before opening her own shop. The bakery describes its journey as one that took it "from the block to the shop," a reference to its earliest days as a small, informal operation that Tiara ran out of her own apartment before it grew into the storefront bakery it is today. That trajectory, from a neighborhood side project into a standalone business, remains central to how The Pastry Box presents itself to customers.

The Pastry Box began during the pandemic, when Chef Tiara Bennett started selling her handcrafted pastries outside her Bed-Stuy apartment in June 2020, alongside her best friend Venetta Smith, as a way to bring joy to her neighbors while the city was shut down. The small operation received an overwhelmingly positive response from the community, which gave Tiara the confidence and momentum to pursue her long-held vision of owning her own bakery. That vision became reality in June 2023, when The Pastry Box opened as a flagship storefront. Tiara, a New York native, had spent her entire life in the kitchen in one form or another, drawn to the way food could combine with art, adventure, culture, love, and family. That drive led her to study at the International Culinary Center, formerly known as the French Culinary Institute, where she trained under some of the nation's most accomplished chefs in Michelin-starred kitchens. The Pastry Box today reflects that journey from the block to the shop, serving as an outlet for Tiara's love of classic pastry favorites reimagined with complex flavor profiles, with grander plans reportedly still in the works. The bakery frames its own history explicitly around that arc, from a single person selling pastries on a Brooklyn sidewalk to a full storefront bakery just three years later, a path the business credits to the strength of the community response it received in its earliest days.

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