Ceci-Cela

The chocolate chip cookie I got from the glass jar was amazing. Sweet, chewy yet firm. Add a glass of milk and enjoy.
They did sell out of fruit tarts (this was around 1 pm on Friday), which put a frown on my wife’s face. No frown for me.

The place is very small, cute, and cozy. The menu is all simple and healthy, yet delicious! Also very affordable as well. I would recommend the sandwiches than dessert.

A friend and I were looking for a sit down place to get coffee at night and catch up and we stopped in here. I am so glad that we did! I love dessert and tea, so it means a lot for me to admit that chocolate éclair one of the best I’ve ever had, and the hot cinnamon spice tea was phenomenal.
The best part about our experience here, however, wasn’t the delicious pastries and teas but instead the service. The bakery was closing soon, but the woman who served us kindly let us stay and was so welcoming and friendly. I hope to come back here often! Thank you Miss, for your kindness!

Quality place for pastries and coffee. A true gem in the middle of Nolita/​Lower East!
A vast variety of sweets, and they are all spectacular. The Apricot danish and almond croissant are a must. Very good and strong coffee.
The place is small but the heart of the people who work there is big. You can stay as long as you want and it’s very cozy.
Definitely a great pit stop to recharge batteries and keep wandering around the neighborhood.

This place looks cute seems cute but thats all it is. Its cozy and small but the desserts are bland and seem almost yo be supermarket quality. I asked for a tiramisu and was told they «ran out», so I was forced to order a frasier which was nothing special and pretty basic. Did it look good? Yea it looked delicious but did it actually taste delicious good nope. It was dry almost stale like. So then I tried the Napoleon which is suppose to be delicious and flaky but guess what? It wasn’t AT ALL. It was hard like a rock I stabbed at it until I finally decided it would just be better to break this apart and eat the cream filling. So disappointed sigh. I just wanted to pretend I was in a french café in paris. Dreams crushed
Ps– apparently i should have came here for their croissants which i didn’t try. Oh well.

This place is definitely a local gem in Nolita. Best chocolate croissants. Their galettes are also lovely. Fruit tarts have massive amounts of fruit on them which is a definite plus. The madelines were a bit disappointing though.
In terms of drinks, they have almond milk! Which is harder to find than other non dairy milks.
Lovely service, chill ambiance, and amazing pastries!
Definitely recommend.

Latte was very good. Tried a pumpkin and chocolate tart that somehow had no flavor. My husband had a chocolate éclair that was good, however.

Didn’t enjoy the pastries I tried. Gave the remainder to a homeless man. Dry, a bit bland and over baked in my opinion.

This place reminds me of the pastry we ate from Patisserie Marti on Nantucket.
Ceci Cela makes the same little ganache filled chocolate mice with almond sliver ears, butter cream filled peach pastries, with a delicate sponge like «flesh», that is hand colored to look like the real thing.
The «sugar glaze» and «stale pastry» mentioned in another post are lightly sweetened gelatin, which is used to glaze fruit tarts and other goodies, giving a glass like appearance, and the «hard pastry» mystery is due to cold butter and some sugar in the cooked pastry dough.
What a shame that French pastry should have so much butter, eggs, and stuff like real sugar in there… Yuck! :-D

Ceci-​Cela will now be my go-​to spot for fruit tarts.
When I was tasked with purchasing fixings for a wine and cheese event at work, I got it in my head to get a tart for it. I by-​passed the pastry section at the Dean & Deluca on Broadway and decided to take a gamble on Ceci-​Cela around the corner. My hunch paid off. When I saw the mound of fresh mixed berries, sprinkled with powdered sugar, I couldn’t leave without it, even though I was going over my budget.
What qualifies me to make any sort of judgement on Ceci-Cela’s tart? Well, I’ve made them myself; they’re really time consuming. Until Ceci-Cela’s tart I haven’t been able to purchase anything better than homemade. I’ve had tarts from Mille Feuilles (soggy crust), Freshdirect (tough custard), Bruno’s Patisseria (OK), and Le Pain Quotidian (also, just OK). Ceci-Cela’s tart wins. In fact their tart was so well received, my review is based solely on the crumbs I was left licking off the knife: the crust was buttery, the custard velvety, and the powdered sugar lent just the right amount of sweetness to the tart berries– which were seasonally fresh. I consider the $ 27 for this 9″ beauty to be well spent, luckily my boss agreed.

The croissants and pain au chocolats here are some of the best I have had in New York… or even outside of France! They are exactly as they are in France — crispy, flaky, and not at all bready. They’re even France-​sized as opposed to the jumbo pastries at most places in NY (although I recognize that that may be a disadvantage… :) just a sign of authenticity)

Love the Spinach-​Ricotta Turnover! The atmosphere is great, tucked away, and private. The back area is very quiet and nice to just sit and hang out.
Staff is friendly.
The only thing is that it’s a bit cramped in the ordering area and i’m never quite sure which way the line goes… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What a gem! Everyone who works in this tiny bakery is so sweet, and they always greet you warmly. The coffee is good and inexpensive, but my favorite item on the menu? The Brie on baguette. For around four dollars to can order a chewy little baguette with thick slabs of Brie and a little butter; it’s the perfect lunch, in my opinion. The other sandwiches are just as good! My coworker loves the chicken sandwich with honey mustard.
Once I tried the Brie on a bagel stick. What a great invention!

Small lil narrow french bakery in soho. With a small café seating tables in the back it’s a nice casual spot for some coffee and french pastries. It’s bare bones and you get your basic service. A nice place just to relax and have a nice flakey buttery croissant. The baked items are the ones to get here like the plain or chocolate croissants. They have nice savory croissant sandwiches as well. Loved the brie and ham croissant. The pastries like the napoleon and chocolate cake i thought was a bit sweet. Coffees to me i thought was a bit watered down with no flavor. During the holidays though they have great individual size or large buche de noel logs. The coffee and chocolate one was delish.

We wish we could remember the name of the cake that we got here. It was fantastic! It’s fruity & delicious! It was just perfect! For $ 6, it was definitely worth it. This place is a small French bakery that sells cakes, croissants, pastries, cookies, & coffee. You can also pre order the traditional French wedding cake, croquembouche here. We spoke with one of the staff, Jean Louis. He was great! You can just tell that he’s very passionate about cakes. Excellent service!
Highly recommended! We’ll definitely go back!

Un petit café super mignon dans Nolita qui associe influences françaises (comme son créateur) et new yorkaises, a la fois dans la carte et dans la déco.
On choisit au comptoir parmi les pâtisseries en tous genres a l’heure du petit déjeuner (croissants, pains au chocolat, madeleines, mais aussi muffins, cookies et brioches a la cannelle), des sandwiches ou quiches maison a l’heure du déjeuner, ou d’imposantes parts de gâteaux pour la pause gouter. Une toute petite section épicerie fine propose aussi des mini pots de confiture Bonne Maman et des ballotins de chocolat. J’ai testé un assortiment de mini muffins (banane, noix de pecan, pépites de chocolat) et mini madeleines (nature ou pistache), tous très bons. Coté boissons chaudes la carte est très classique mais les plus gourmands pourront ajouter des sirops a leurs cafés, a la mode US, mais des sirops Monin s’il vous plait !
On retrouve cette double influence dans la petite salle a l’arrière de la boutique. Des meubles en bois type diner américains et murs en brique rouges typiquement new yorkais auxquels sont accrochés des publicités ou plaques de rues et d’enseignes françaises. Sans compter la playlist Edith Piaff– Dassin– Dutronc et les BD Chevalier Ardent qui trônent a coté du Time Out New York !
Un endroit très sympa donc ou on est très bien accueilli, parfait pour se poser pu attraper un snack a emporter a tout moment de la journée !

I guess I should have read the reviews more carefully, rather than just paying attention to the rating. It seems that everyone has been talking about their croissants, but I ordered a piece of strawberry charlotte.
Well, in my own defense, I was having this huge craving for a piece of cake. But I was disappointed at the one I had. The very berry pink color turned me down a little bit. I think they should reduce the amount of color, so it will look better. The strawberry mousse was not very strawberry. I had a bite of the pear williams cake my friend ordered and it was pretty good. The cake was not too sweet and the freshness of pear totally came out.
But the atmosphere is really cozy and they have friendly staff.
Need to try their croissants next time…

Armed with referral credit*, scored a solid pain au chocolat (asked for chocolate croissant) straight from the source at a reasonable rate. Cozy little store and friendly staff who were patient with their POS as I helped them through their first transaction. (I’ve had their best-​in-​class almond croissant at so many cafes over the years that I figured it couldn’t be that much different in the flesh.) Will be back for a fruit tart and the dark chocolate mousse cake.
Transaction Amount $ 2.60
Credit Applied — $ 2.60
Total Spent $ 0.00
*you’re welcome business and loyalists

This review is only for the Chocolate Almond Croissant, which is quickly becoming a cult favorite NYC dessert. Lately, a lot of people have been talking about this rich nugget of butter and flour and I think it generally deserves the hype.
The thing is that this croissant is loaded with so much butter and almond paste (but mostly butter) that it doesn’t rise as much as a standard croissant. I think for most people this is a very good thing because the whole pastry becomes like this dense disc of chewy, caramelized, chocolaty butter-​bread. It is almost like eating slightly leavened almond toffee. So, safe to say it is absolutely great.
I personally like a little more of a rise in my croissants. On some podcast Dominique Ansel called the air pockets in a croissant «honeycomb,» which I thought was kind of cool. Anyway, I wanted a little more honeycomb, but that’s totally my personal preference. This thing is so unique, though, that I am actually glad it is the way it is.
TL DR: The Chocolate Almond Croissant here is quickly becoming a quintessential NYC treat and it generally deserves that status because it is one majorly tasty pastry.

Chocolate Almond croissant:
Croissants is suppose to be a crescent-​shaped pastry but in the case,
it is just a rectangle. The shape really doesn’t affect the taste at
all. I love the buttery and flakiness of the pastry and the
combination of Almond and chocolate is just perfect. When you bite
into it, it is flaky and it is soft and tasty inside. It brings up my
morning spirit.

One of the best almond croissants I’ve ever had, if not the best. The coffee is also quite good! It’s also great that there’s seating in the back, unlike most bakeries. It definitely feels like Paris in here.
Minus one star because the service is a little aloof.