New Yorkers wait hours in line to score pastries at Radio Bakery in Brooklyn. Since opening in 2023, the bakery has gained immense popularity since its tomato croissant went viral on social media. It's not just hype — Kelly Mencin, chef-owner of Radio Bakery, ensures that each pastry is executed to its fullest potential, from the proof to the bake. Watch how Mencin and her team make their top sellers, including their seasonal maple sausage croissant, Earl Grey buns, focaccia, sandwiches, and bread loaves.
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00:00This whole process is a huge pain in the ass,
00:01but it's so worth it.
00:03It's 5.30 now, we're opening in two hours at 7.30.
00:07This is our maple sausage croissant.
00:09We get sage maple breakfast sausage made for us.
00:13Once I have all these gaps filled,
00:15we're gonna roll it up and then cut it.
00:18Like the traditional spiral shape,
00:20I honestly think it's one of the hardest shapes
00:22because when you're moving the dough around
00:25and there's a tendency to stretch the dough,
00:28and when that happens,
00:29that means you're gonna have inconsistent sizes.
00:33We're egg washing, and it gets topped
00:35with lots of fresh sage that we then,
00:39gets crispy in the oven,
00:41and then when it comes out of the oven,
00:42we're gonna brush with maple syrup.
00:45It's just like the perfect salty-sweet bite.
00:48The epitome of your brunch plate.
00:58♪♪
01:10Bakers get here at 5 a.m.,
01:12and then it's just like hit the ground running
01:14to get, I don't know, a dozen different pastries
01:16finished and baked off.
01:18It's a push, but it's fun.
01:20Making sure we're clean and organized
01:22and then ready for, usually,
01:24the line that has been forming
01:26earlier and earlier every day.
01:28So, we're filling our apple brown butter croissants.
01:32Apple croissant is our seasonal croissant right now.
01:35We make, like, a very dark brown butter custard,
01:38and then we top with thinly sliced apples.
01:41Before we even opened Radio,
01:43we knew that we wanted to do
01:45very distinct, seasonal, special croissants.
01:48The seasonal pastries are extremely popular.
01:51I guess you could say, like, limited time,
01:53or, like, people just love something
01:54that is very in season.
01:57Most bakeries finish their pastries
01:59with a store-bought nopage,
02:01which is water and pectin, typically,
02:04but we make our own.
02:06It seals in, makes sure the apples aren't dry,
02:10and makes it taste like fresh apple,
02:13like, right off the tree.
02:16So, we're opening in five minutes.
02:18It's go time.
02:19We have people starting to line up outside.
02:21About to get real busy real quick.
02:25Typically, on any given day,
02:27we're mixing 12 croutons worth of croissant dough.
02:31So, this is our pre-ferment.
02:33This is gonna give it a lot of flavor,
02:35and then she's also gonna put in
02:38our croissant trimmings, yeast, milk.
02:40There's a lot of ice in here
02:41because it's a fairly long mix,
02:44and we really wanna make sure that this dough stays cold.
02:48Maybe the most important part of this croissant dough
02:50is we use Small Valley milling bread flour.
02:54The special patent flour is necessary
02:56because it's high-protein,
02:58and that's what gives the croissant
02:59its big burst in the oven.
03:03Kelly's busy with something,
03:04so I'm stepping in with croissant dough with Valerie.
03:08So, we're weighing out 5.4 kilo pieces.
03:12We're just gonna try to shape these
03:15into, like, kind of a rectangular log,
03:19and once that happens, Valerie's gonna press them down
03:23and roll them out and get them on sheet trays.
03:26We want it to be nice and flat and even for the laminator.
03:31Jackie, my head baker, has been with me since Rolos.
03:35She's like the yin to my yang.
03:38I went to pastry school, but I wanted to be pushed harder,
03:40and so I transitioned over to cooking.
03:43I ended up moving to New York,
03:45and with one restaurant in mind, Gramercy Tavern,
03:48got the job.
03:49I worked there for a little bit over two years on the line,
03:53not pastry, and then I kind of had, like,
03:55a moment where I was a little bit lost,
03:59and I knew I wanted to go back to pastry,
04:01but I didn't know how.
04:05Howard and Rafik were opening a restaurant called Rolos,
04:10and everyone at Gramercy knew about it.
04:12I reached out to Howard, and I was like,
04:14do you guys need a pastry chef?
04:16He brought me in to talk.
04:17They had no idea that I could do pastry,
04:19and that kind of took a gamble on me
04:21and hired me to be the pastry chef of Rolos,
04:24and it blew up, and I loved it.
04:27I remember sitting in the car with Rafik
04:30and him turning to me and being like,
04:32do you want to open a bakery with us?
04:34And I, like, remember shaking him and being like,
04:36I'm gonna own a bakery in New York City.
04:40It was never our intention to be a pipe bakery
04:43or what we are now.
04:45I'm just making things that I want to eat, you know?
04:48From that point on, it was like, hit the ground running.
04:51We're gonna start laminating croissants.
04:54So we get this butter from France.
04:56It's high in fat, and it's also really dry,
04:59which helps define the layers.
05:04It's really important that the butter and the dough
05:07are the same temperature.
05:09If the butter is too cold, it'll crack.
05:12If it's too warm, it'll melt out.
05:15Every bakery gets offcuts, which is these,
05:21and we save them and age them,
05:25and that's what we use as a pre-ferment in our croissant dough.
05:29The offcuts of, like, our round croissants,
05:33those get turned into cinnamon rolls.
05:36Okay, so that's it.
05:38That's my first block.
05:39They're all going in the freezer.
05:41They'll relax for about an hour, hour and a half, two hours,
05:45and then we will shape them as the day goes on.
05:50So it's a little after 10.
05:52It looks like we're about to be sold out
05:53of lunch focaccias, which is not ideal.
05:56Sandwich team is in full-blown sandwich mode.
06:00Normally, I can be waiting in line
06:01for up to an hour, an hour and a half.
06:04I would say that in the past,
06:05I've been in line for, like, 10 minutes, 15 minutes.
06:08Maybe, like, half an hour sometimes
06:09if I really want that croissant.
06:12We have told people that, like,
06:14if you want this pastry, be here at 730
06:17so you won't be disappointed.
06:19I heard about Radio Bakery through my girlfriend,
06:22and she told me that she found it on TikTok.
06:25Yeah, so I never expected us to become viral.
06:32If I had to choose one pastry that probably really blew us up,
06:36it would probably be the tomato croissant
06:39that we made this summer.
06:40People are still asking if we have the tomato croissant,
06:43and sadly, you know, it's a seasonal special,
06:47and hopefully we'll have it next year.
06:50I mean, we opened this bakery with, like,
06:52a team of less than 10 people last year.
06:55We just, like, continually keep getting busier.
06:59Enjoy any pastries tonight?
07:01Yeah. Val is getting started on our focaccia mix.
07:04This is the focaccia that I was making
07:07when we first opened Rolo's.
07:08We use the same dough for the strato and the focaccia
07:11because, one, it's such a small space,
07:15and this dough is just, like, f***ing delicious.
07:18When we move to open the new radio on Underhill,
07:22Jackie will be taking over here, big mama in the house.
07:27So, apple, morning bun, sausage, croissant.
07:30Okay. Jackie is about to get focaccias in the oven.
07:34So, I'm just popping these bubbles.
07:36I dock them so that they don't rise up
07:40and, like, have tons of air in them.
07:43And then I'm going in the oven.
07:45It's gonna be 550 degrees.
07:47It's really, really hot.
07:48It'll give it a nice, crispy exterior
07:51and, like, a really soft, chewy inside,
07:55which is ideal for focaccias.
07:57People are always asking us, like,
07:59why can't you just make more?
08:00It's because everything takes three days to make.
08:03What we're baking today was made yesterday.
08:07It needs, you know, four hours to proof.
08:11We want things to be tasty.
08:12Tasty things require a little tender, loving care,
08:15and you can't rush those things.
08:16It's a little after 11 when we're gonna start shaping.
08:19So, first, we're gonna start shaping our classic croissant.
08:23I'm gonna have Haley hop in now.
08:25She's, like, the master at cutting croissants,
08:27way better than me.
08:28The dough, when you sheet it out, is different every day.
08:31So, that is why we weigh these every single time,
08:34to make sure everything is consistent.
08:36Every single baker I know shapes croissants a different way.
08:40Ours is just a very simple.
08:42We go for seven humps.
08:44The ears, we like with, like, a little curl.
08:47We call it ears up.
08:49Zoe and Amanda are the most consistent,
08:51amazing croissant shapers here,
08:54and now Haley, too.
08:55That just goes to show that
08:57if my team can do it better than me,
08:58then that's exactly what I want.
09:02Our croissant should also have, like, a perfect honeycomb.
09:05Honeycomb is, when you cut into a croissant,
09:07you'll see all the layers,
09:09and it literally looks like a honeycomb.
09:11And that shows that it was laminated
09:12with skill and confidence,
09:15which is what every baker strives to do.
09:19Oh, it's a good croissant.
09:21Nice job, guys.
09:22This is gonna be our morning bun.
09:25Our Earl Grey morning bun,
09:27the idea came when we were doing pop-ups
09:29through Rolo's before Radio opened,
09:31so I was testing everything at Rolo's,
09:33and I wanted to do something with tea,
09:36and it was delicious.
09:37Morning buns get a nice amount of butter
09:40and then a good amount of Earl sugar.
09:43We grind it with a little bit more lemon zest.
09:46We get really good Earl Grey tea from Serendipity Tea.
09:49I tell families all the time that buy this for the kids,
09:53I'm like, it has caffeine in it,
09:55so prepare yourself.
09:58If these are rolled too tight,
10:00the inside, the little belly button
10:01is gonna spiral out too much.
10:03If they're rolled too loose,
10:05they don't really stay together.
10:07I think we make over 600 of these a week.
10:09This could never go off the menu.
10:11I think people would riot.
10:12This is, like, beautiful.
10:14It's exactly what we're looking for.
10:15You can see the lamination.
10:17You can see a nice amount of sugar,
10:19and they look very happy.
10:20So we're gonna tray these up
10:21and freeze them for tomorrow.
10:25I am testing our Queen Amand,
10:27which has been my dream for going on three years now.
10:31We're gonna use a little bit of flour
10:34and start our first fold.
10:36I lived in Napa and then San Francisco for a little bit,
10:39and there's this bakery there called Bee Patisserie,
10:42and they're known for their Queen Amand,
10:44and I had the Queen Amand.
10:45I swear to God, it was life-changing.
10:48The process can take months or years.
10:52Me or someone on my team is constantly R&Ding.
10:56The Queen Amand, I'm still testing
10:57after literally three years
10:59because I just can't get it right.
11:02We are just so specific and anal
11:06about making sure that everything that we make
11:09is the best version that it could be.
11:11So on my last two folds,
11:14I'm gonna add my sugar,
11:18and I made a mix of soba cha tea,
11:21maple sugar, and a little bit of salt.
11:24My dough feels nice and strong.
11:27It's pretty good so far.
11:28When we shape croissants
11:29and any of our other Briandoiserie,
11:32we laminate, and then it needs to rest
11:35for at least an hour to let the gluten relax.
11:38But Queen Amand, since the dough is so lean,
11:42it's gonna come really syrupy.
11:43We're gonna shape it right now and prove it right now.
11:48A month ago, I was so close to unlocking this
11:52and getting it right,
11:53and then I just had to take a step back.
11:55But I know it when I see it or when I taste it.
11:59And so today, hopefully,
12:02it's like the almost-winning Queen Amand.
12:05These are gonna rest.
12:06I mean, aside from recipe testing,
12:09we are constantly checking in on our pastries
12:12and making sure that,
12:13are they executed to their best potential?
12:17That's pretty good.
12:18Even our morning buns have also been on the menu
12:20since before we opened.
12:22But just last week,
12:23we put a little bit more butter in the molds
12:25and we added more sugar,
12:26and they're better than they were a month ago.
12:28And I think that is so important,
12:31that it's not just always about looking ahead
12:33at the next best thing.
12:34It's also about checking to make sure
12:38that the staples, what we're selling every day,
12:41are staying true to themselves.
12:43So it's about 2.15.
12:45We're completely sold out of everything
12:47except for one single loaf of bread.
12:49But we're gonna close up shop
12:51so that we can clean up
12:53and get some staff out of here earlier.
13:00We are at 186 Underhill Ave,
13:03the new Radio Bakery in Prospect Heights.
13:05So as you come into the bakery,
13:07you'll be able to see people shaping,
13:09dividing dough right here.
13:11As we go down,
13:12there's gonna be tables, tables here
13:14for people baking.
13:16This is the rotating oven,
13:18so pastries will be coming out of here.
13:20This is the double proofer retarder.
13:22Sandwich station gets their own big table.
13:25And then right next to sandwich station,
13:27this is gonna be the sheeter
13:29and like lamination station.
13:31It's tight, but as efficient
13:34as we could possibly make it.
13:37Early on, when we saw how successful Radio was,
13:42it must've been like less than six months in.
13:45I don't even know if it was a discussion.
13:46It was just like, we're gonna open a second one, right?
13:49The menu is gonna be similar, but different.
13:52Probably some of the same staple items.
13:55I do wanna have like unique items at each location
13:58and that's where the kouign-amann comes into play.
14:00I really wanna have a kouign-amann over there.
14:02Sandwiches might be a little bit different.
14:04It'll scratch that itch of what Radio in Greenpoint is.
14:09We saw the potential for what Radio is
14:12and not just as like a money machine,
14:15but as a place for me to teach
14:18and inspire and grow staff.
14:21Radio just keeps growing and with that comes the want
14:26and the need to train people
14:28and to grow and mentor individuals.
14:32Pastry chefs are a dying breed.
14:34Restaurants can't afford pastry chefs.
14:36That is kind of like what Radio was trying to do
14:39is bring in people that wanna learn,
14:41but also people that wanna grow.
14:44There's a reason I love being on the line
14:46because it's like that momentum that keeps you going.
14:50You get in like that trance of like dancing
14:52around each other and just like constantly pushing
14:55to do more, to be better.
14:58I love it.
14:59I wouldn't have it any other way.