Why is there no line at this bakery?
Romina Peixoto's Sweet Graffiti is an under the radar smash.
Here’s a curious situation: a pastry chef opens a bakery. But she’s not just any pastry chef. She’s worked at some of the most renowned kitchens in the country – Eleven Madison Park, WD-50, Broussard’s in New Orleans, Chef Alan Wong’s in Honolulu, Eleven Restaurant in Pittsburgh. She also made history as Le Cirque’s first female and first non-French Executive Pastry Chef. So, you know, impressive stuff.
After five years as pastry chef at The Chocolate Room in Brooklyn, she finally opens her own bakery, with partners Franklin Becker and Stephen Loffredo. It’s called Sweet Graffiti, and it’s just next door to B&L Diner in the Martinique Hotel on Broadway. It’s a small space, kind of tucked away under scaffolding at the moment, with a Willy Wonka-ish menu that includes colorful glossy bonbons, magnificent homemade softserve, chocolate dipped smashed croissants, and cookies in flavors as fabulous as Pad Thai.
The pastry chef in question is Romina Peixoto, a native of Argentina, who is doing some of the most exciting things I’ve seen in a long time with sugar, butter, and imagination. And yet, when I visited her shop, there was no line. There is no viral insanity. Why? I have no idea. But that should change. I must kindly insist (please) that you stop what you’re doing right now and go. Seriously. Here’s why.
Let’s begin with her gorgeous bonbons, in flavors like Sea Salt Caramel, Matcha Passionfruit, Cinnamon Bun, and Mango Cardamom. Next, her homemade Dubai Chocolate bar, a milk chocolate slab filled with hand-toasted kataifi and a pistachio cream made from pistachio paste, tahini, and white chocolate. There’s also a Chunky-sized Butterfinger-adjacent confection she calls a Gold Finger—homemade honeycomb (nut free!) drenched in chocolate; it is divine, with that same crispy, airy crunchy peanut-buttery center you better not lay a finger on. I could eat them for days.
But she’s doing more than just fancy chocolates. She’s got an entire bakery and ice cream program too. Her donuts, cookies and pastries are revolutionary. Take her Pad Thai cookie to start. “We wanted to make an interesting cookie, something really different,” said Romina. “We were thinking about peanut butter and lime and we were like that’s Pad Thai.” Romina started with a classic peanut butter cookie, but took a left turn, filling it with a creamy caramel made from the component flavors of the Thai noodle dish: coconut, chile and lime. The result is a peanut butter cookie with a fudgey center that pours out the top, giving a little heat, a little tart, to balance the nutty sweetness of the cookie. “It has this savory memory inside of it,” Romina said. It’s epic.
Beyond the Pad Thai Cookie, there’s also a new-fangled take on the croissant craze – the smashed croissant, what she calls a Croissant Crisp. Here me out. To start, she laminates and proofs her croissants, then she rolls them in raw sugar, smashes them between two sheet pans, then bakes them until they become crispy, shellacked from the caramelized sugar that forms a crust. Romina plays with different toppings depending on mood, from milk chocolate hazelnut to dark chocolate-strawberry; to dulcey chocolate and chocolate covered almonds. Heaven!
But wait. There’s more! She’s also doing her own soft serve, in vanilla, which is used for Dubai Sundae, topped with pistachio and kataifi, chocolate and pistachio sauce, and a vegan passion fruit mango at the moment. Her ice cream program also includes a roster of whimsical ice cream bars in flavors like strawberry shortcake (mimicking the classic Good Humor bar) and more off-beat combinations like an Apricot Hojicha Green Tea that’s dipped in a caramelized white chocolate shell, and Pandan Chocolate robed in a chocolate shell studded with almond crunch.
For such a small shop, the vastness and creativity of the menu is quite surprising. But Romina said that’s the idea. “Our original idea was to do a donut shop, but I wanted to do more,” she said. “I am a chocolatier and that is something that I really love, but I have also been a pastry chef and I love confections. I thought it would be fun to have a mix of everything. With more variety, you have something for everyone – some refined bonbons, but then you have the cookies and macarons and the flat croissants, donuts, and the softserve the ice cream too, popsicles, and a bunch of options. It’s really fun.” It certainly is.
Sounds amazing!
You know I have a huge sweet tooth. We can't get anything like this in Virginia..will she ship?