Imma M.
Yelp
How do I express how much I love Fratelli Bakery? It's not exactly cutting edge or innovative, or elegant, and it definitely doesn't use local organic ingredients. It doesn't sport minimalist hipster ambience or cool sculptural light fixtures.
Fratelli gets five stars for perfectly recreating the bakeries of my childhood (which was in the nineties). At Fratelli, a 2020 hazelnut tart tastes just like a 1990 hazelnut tart as if no time has passed. There's a pretty good chance Fratelli has been using the same recipes for 30+ years. And there's a reason for that: they're delicious. If artificial vanilla has a special place in your heart like it does in mine, Fratelli is the place for you.
I alternate between a flourescent yellow lemon tart or a French eclair. Fratelli seems to do particularly well at pate a choux, the pastry that eclairs and cream puffs are made from. As other Yelpers have mentioned, they have one particularly over-the-top confection, called a St. Honore cake, which has too many components to mention, but includes Bavarian cream, whipping cream, choux, and sponge cake, and which everyone should try at least once.
The coffee is pretty good, too.