The Hungarian Pastry Shop in Manhattan on March 5, 2025. Photo courtesy of Anna Rahmanan.

JNS

By ANNA RAHMANAN

Philip Binioris, who owns Hungarian Pastry Shop on 111th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, adjacent to the Columbia University campus in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, worried that tumult on the Ivy League school’s campus last year would spill over to his small bakery.

But even as anti-semitic protests raged several blocks away, the bakery—which can feel like a library setting, where doctoral students can be found banging away on their keyboards composing dissertations—remained a haven for students and locals.

“That was a very chaotic moment in the neighborhood,” Binioris, 38, told JNS at the bakery on the afternoon of March 5. “I was concerned that it would affect customer experience, but surprisingly, it didn’t.”

“A lot of the students who were protesting are customers here, and a lot of the students who felt they were being attacked are customers,” he said. “I assumed they’d argue in here, and yet they didn’t. They never did. In here, it always stayed civil.”

Binioris has run the bakery—the walls are adorned with bookjackets of works penned by authors who spent countless hours writing at its tables—since 2012, when his father, who is Greek, retired. The senior Binioris bought the establishment in 1976 from the Hungarian bakers, who had founded it in 1961.

The present owner, whose mother is Jewish, has carried on many of the bakery’s Eastern European baking traditions. And that means that hamantaschen—$3.86 each with a choice of apricot, walnut, prune and poppyseed—remain a fixture on the menu. (The bakery is not kosher.)

“I just think they’re delicious,” Binioris told JNS of the hamantaschen. “It’s got a nice fruit inside, a good crumb to it. It’s hard but soft.”

“I don’t make new flavors on Purim,” he said. “It’s maybe 20% more sales on Purim. I think they’re great, especially if you get here when they’re like an hour out of the oven.” He added that his pastries “are just unbelievable” and “the best thing on the planet.”

JNS sampled a few hamantasch. The pastries did seem to have an added dimension when they were fresh out of the oven. The edges cracked upon taking a bite, contrasting with the soft interior.

Binioris told JNS that most hamantaschen he is aware of are made with something similar to Linzer dough, “which traces back to Linz, Austria.”

“Austria and Hungary used to have an empire together, so trace it back far enough and it fits,” he said. His bakery’s take on the Purim treat follows that lineage with a classic texture and flavor.

The process of making hamantaschen at Hungarian Pastry Shop is simple yet precise.

“The dough is pretty straightforward,” he said. “We’re mixing bulk cookie dough, rolling it out in form, cutting a circle and then folding the triangle with the filling in the middle.” The pastries bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

Other Favorites

JNS heard about and sampled some other pastries at the bakery during a visit that appeared bustling, but which the hostess called “slow.”

The pastry display was unembellished and a throwback in an era of trendy, selfie-ready decorations at other establishments.

Binioris told JNS that the bakery makes a “great almond cookie,” as well as croissants, cinnamon raisin or cheese Danish and many cakes.

“Year-round, cheesecake and carrot cake are our winners,” he said. The shop also serves a Viennese cake, Dobos torte and a lemon-mascarpone cream cake that was developed in-house.

“We try to do simple things well. That’s kind of what we try to do,” he said. “Not too much competition in flavors and textures. When we develop new recipes, I try to channel some of that Eastern European ingredient history: lots of nuts, dried fruits and buttercreams.”

One of the bakery’s most recognized items is its croissant, which is unlike the traditional French version. “It’s kind of almost like a brioche that’s turned into a croissant,” Binioris said. “It’s laminated like a croissant but the ingredients are more of a brioche.”

JNS sampled the croissant, served with apricot jam. The texture seemed to be denser than a classic croissant, and there was some sweetness in the first bite, perhaps due to a brushed-on layer of sugar. The jam added contrast to the experience.

Customer Fan

Customers place orders at the front, take a seat and wait for their names to be called. Servers bring a tray to their table with their pastries and, typically, a coffee to accompany them. It’s a ritual that regulars like Chris Myers, who teaches at a nearby college and comes for an hour or two several times weekly, cherish.

“The people who work here are lovely, the energy is great, and the view is great,” he told JNS. “The croissant and pastries, in general, are great, and the coffee is really good, too.”

Lavatories’ Graffiti

One very unusual feature of the shop are the bathrooms—but not for reasons that would attract health inspectors. Graffiti, reflecting the social and political debates of the day, flourishes on the walls in the lavatories at Hungarian Pastry Shop.

“People call me, and tell me it’s offensive and needs to be changed,” Binioris told JNS. “But I feel like if there’s going to be a place for that, the toilet is where it’s at.”

“We clean it up periodically because they draw so much on the wall,” he said. “I would say the messages are equal opportunity offensive.”