Lafayette Grand Café & Bakery — Restaurant in New York

A few months ago, in Barcelona, everybody started talking about a local bakery that sells the new trending pastry in NYC: a round croissant filled with pistachio. I have never had the opportunity to try it out and, to be honest, that does not sound too appealing to me: in my opinion, a croissant must be shaped like a 🌙 and, most of all, it must be plain! (or it’s a cornetto…) But again, when we arrived in NYC, we didn't know anything about the city anymore, so we checked on the Internet. I looked for salty food and my wife looked for sweets (well, I did look for ice creams and doughnuts myself, to be fair) and she found Lafayette, the original “inventor” of this round pastry (they call it Suprême, btw, but it’s… a croissant). First, we had to queue (under the rain!) for about 20 minutes to get inside just to order to go... While we were queuing, we could see through the Windows all the "content creators" inside showing a camera how much they were enjoying their Suprême: sad. Once inside, I was amazed by... the darkness of the venue. I couldn't even see what I was ordering. Honestly, I knew what I was coming for, otherwise, I couldn't have known what to order... they don't want us to see what we eat? That's a shame because, when I got used to the darkness, I could guess that the venue actually looked very nice. I sincerely don't know why they don't turn the light on. So the clerk at the counter told us about the 4 flavors available that day and we picked pistachio and the seasonal: Suprême de Noël. I must say that the pistachio Suprême was very good, at least the half where there was cream. The other half was just like a regular croissant, a good one but nothing from another world either. The Suprême de Noël was not that good, the cream was too thick, I guess to make it seem like an actual "bûche" but that didn't fit the Suprême so much. Don't get me wrong, it was not bad, but for $10 a piece and a 20-minute rainy line, I expected way more. I would trade this for a good croissant or a pistachio cornetto anytime.

Quality & taste: 7/10 Quantities: 9/10 Atmosphere: 5/10 Originality: 7/10 Ratio price / quality: 2/10 Service: 1/10 How I felt afterwards: 3/10

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Lafayette cafe & bakery is an excellent example of how visibly long lines do not necessarily equate to food that makes the wait worth it. I initially heard about Lafayette through various food blogs that were raving about their delicious take on French cuisine and baked pastries. Upon my arrival to Lafayette, I was stunned and a bit intimidated by the supremely long ling wrapping around the corner block to get into the restaurant and bakery.

Once my party and I were seated at a snug booth table, we ordered their boulangerie basket of pastries, brunch brisket burger, lemon ricotta pancakes topped with berries, a croque madam, and a round of cold brew. Additionally, we lined up to get their highly rated pastries from the bakery (of which their signature pastry, The Supreme, a kouign aman-esque take on the famed French croissants) was not available for restaurant guests to feast on. For good reason, the resto-cafe had a long history of guests making reservations at the busy cafe, only to order The Supreme, and nothing else.

Now, onto the food review, the cold brew was bland and frankly, quite bitter. The tray of assorted pastries were unremarkable and were not worth the $25 listed price. The brunch brisket beef burger was tender, juicy, and surprisingly well seasoned, the accompanying fries were fantastic. The croque madame was simply bland and its only redeeming quality was a generous serving of ham for its filling. The lemon ricotta pancakes were equally mediocre asides from the copious helping of assorted berries.

Finally, with regards to the pastries from the bakery, myself and my party felt that many of the items were too doughy, overbaked, and simply not worth the wait. However, the service and staff was on-par with a restaurant of this quality, the waiters were attentive and helpful. Plus points for the beautiful decor and exceptional waitstaff team.

If I were to sum up my experience at the Lafayette, I would simply say that it is overhyped standard French cuisine fare. My final rating is...

This is a private event review. I booked their downstairs space Cave du Vin for a company holiday party a few months ago. Overall, for an establishment of this stature, I expect at least a basic understanding of events and hospitality. As someone whose professional career revolves around throwing corporate events, I would be very reluctant to recommend this spot to anyone in my network or book it again in the future.

Reviews from previous weddings were glowing and promising. They have a handful of people on their events/sales team that work independently and the ones named positively in reviews was unfortunately not the one we were assigned. Our events contact was not responsive and not even physically present the day of our event! I found out upon arriving that the head chef and maitre’d were my main contacts of the evening. They were lovely and very helpful but this lack of communication was unprofessional. Despite the 5-figures we spent on this party, there was no menu tasting offered. (The complete opposite, actually. Maybe they only care about wedding clientele.) Despite our BEO explicitly listing “espresso drinks included”, the machine happened to be broken the night of our event. I find that extremely hard to believe when they operate a full cafe upstairs. I also am convinced that our bartenders were temps they just hired for this event and not Lafayette staff. We had TWO bartenders for a party of 40 (everyone knows the bartender to guest ratio is normally 1 to 50) and yet they were excruciatingly slow at making the 3 signature drinks we had already predetermined, didn’t seem to know where things were located behind the bar, and shattered glass a few times.

The only saving graces of this experience:

1. amazing onsite staff and service, they even helped me carry heavy event equipment up the stairs and loaded my uber
2. food was decent
3. ambiance
4. everyone had so much fun at the party - though I’d argue the venue can’t take...