HARBS – Upper East Side

Beautiful clean space and presentation but awful and tasteless cakes. Don’t appreciate the signature alcoholic bitter taste in their cakes. Glad they’re not too sweet but the alcohol and bitterness is way too overpowering. Not going back.

Food: nothing special. Lady M is better. For the money, you can get 6 pieces of cakes from Chinatown.
Service: the Japanese (?) waitresses barely speak English. The English-​speaking waitresses are slow and incompetent. It took us more than one hour from ordering to paying the check just for one slice of cake. Can you imagine?

Shared the Green Tea cake and the Mille Crêpe this afternoon.
Both were F-​A-​N-​T-​A-​S-​T-​I-​C! Can’t wait go again and will seek it out in Tokyo soon.

Its pricey for a slice of cake but reason why im giving 4 stars bc it taste so heavenly light and fresh. The cake presentation is much like Lady M. Also, their Banana cream pie is deliriously good. I never like banana cream pie but Harbs makes the best and I’m hooked. They do not have coffee to go. Just sit in only. I love this place to enjoy a cup of tea (they make very good tea) and a slice of cake.

New dessert/​cake spot on the UES. Decadent and a bit Asian inspired too.
UES shabby chic meets cutesy Hamptonesque style décor.
Some terrific cakes here and my slice of Mille Crêpe was certainly delicious and good sized, but at $ 10 a slice is a bit pricey. The Banana Crème Pie was also tasty and a more reasonable price at $ 7.50 a slice.
Many pots of tea flavors also offered here in the $ 7-​$ 8 range. Not too bad. We picked the Apple Cinnamon and enjoyed it. Tea and cake does go well together.
Bright, clean, and friendly service. Worth a try if close by, if looking for a spot to bring Mom or Grandma, or to just chat over desserts, but at the price point it’s not something to do on a daily basis.
I can totally see the UES mommy clans, and well-​to-​do ladies who lunch making this a regular stop.

The cake looks so good, but taste doesn’t really what you expect for. The service is pretty slow that they were chaotically serve someone who cut line. And that’s really make you fell bad :(

Harbs is a lovely European-​style bakery & restaurant that serves delicious cakes and equally delicious sandwiches on thick slices of white Japanese bread. Classical music plays as you enjoy tea or coffee with dessert. I would suggest enjoying that $ 7.50 slice in the restaurant as the ambiance makes the experience so much more enjoyable. I was at Harbs during lunchtime on a weekend and it was fairly empty. The service is outstanding. I ordered the lunch special vegetable omelette sandwich with tea and Banana Cream Pie as the dessert ($ 19 for everything).
Omelette sandwich: Perfectly cooked. Moist and light on a buttered thick slice of delicious bread
Banana Cream Pie: A bit creamy for my taste but delicious and not too decadently sweet.
Don’t expect overly-​sweet American desserts at this bakery. The cakes are all about presentation and simple and fruity ingredients.

We got the king chocolate cake which was pretty amazing with raspberries and baby cream puffs on top. The banana cream pie was also perfectly divine, meticulously wrapped in a triangle of foil for a beautiful presentation. The interior is brand new, bright and clean. The people working there were very nice.

Yeah, no. This was my second time at Harbs (my first miserable one being at the Chelsea location). I usually never write reviews but this time, the whole experience of paying $ 20 for two slices of cake made me want to write one.
Net net: can I get a little more bread with my cheesecake (Rare Cheesecake)? I could have had a whole bagel with the 2 – 3.5 cream cheese sticks that was presented to me upon ordering it!
Never again.

So I’ll start off with the positives, the packaging of the cake is top notch, really recommend if you’re bringing something over to someone’s home or traveling with it. But the cakes I’ve tried have all come up short. I have had the crêpe cake and the green tea cake, both left a lot to be desired. The crêpe cake tastes just like the Chinese cakes with the fruit in it… there are only six or so crêpe layers with tons of fruit. Not to my liking but maybe others will like it for the light sweetness. The green tea cake had so much potential but the matcha just made it bitter without adding any element to the cake. Really wanted to like this place but not worth how expensive it is, it’s even more expensive than lady m.

I’m not really sure why the reviews are so allover the place. I have a feeling there is a big gap in understanding the approach of this dessert place. It is western style cakes with Asian influences. If you’ve ever been to any of the Asian countries, you may understand it. Yes a lot of cream in some cake, but the cream is fresh. I had the berry berry, strawberry and the chestnut one in the span of a week on my travels. The chestnut one could just a little more intense chestnut and red bean flavor, But all were good. I think these are a million times better than disgusting cup cake and conventional American style heavy sugary grainy «icing» can’t even put my fork through cakes. The key points here with these desserts are lightness, moistness (meaning cake is not dry or grainy or large grained), freshness, and subtle taste. You don’t leave feeling disgusting even though it may seem like a lot of cream. The berry berry and the strawberry in particular had just the right cream to cake to fruit ratio. I think if you completely find these cakes a turn off, then I don’t think this style is for you. If you conventional love love cup cake places that had been the trend in all major cities, then you may not find this style to suit you.
So in summary, if you like regular cakes and need everything to be conventionally super sweet, then don’t come here.
If you want a pretty good Asian influenced western style cake, then come here. I’d buy my birthday cake here if I could.
Caution, it is pricey. But big portion and truth is not anymore pricy than having dessert at a restaurant after dinner in the city.
Place: clean nice friendly. But nothing special.

Return? Maybe not going out of my way to do so.
Atmosphere (3) Sterile
Food (3) — We had the strawberry cake. Perfectly fine but not worth the price.
Service (3) Friendly
Cost = Total tab before tax/​tip was $ 10 for 1 piece of cake

They have fantastic selection of cakes. All freshly made and taste great. Since I moved from London to NYC I always felt that everything is too sweet and sugary but this place proved me wrong. Service is a bit slow though and hence I did not put 5 stars against this place but overall I love it

Would give this a zero if possible. Went to get desert to go after dinner. Place is nice, clean and friendly staff. Sadly the desert was HORRIBLE. We had a serving of the banana cream pie and a piece of the Mille fritz. We both took a bite and proceeded to throw them both away. $ 18 fail.

Good place for a nice tea. Very clean and super service. Excellent blt sandwich! Nice and cosy

Agree with another reviewer that it is not Lady M. I like that there is a difference between the two. Harbs has it’s niche in desserts for those who enjoy a more subtle sweet flavor. I would recommend both places equally. The location at the corner is more accessible than the madhouse of Lady M under the Plaza.

Seriously underwhelmed. I had an apple tea that tasted like super market apple cider and a white chocolate cake that tasted only of rum. The atmosphere and decoration are nice but the service is bizarre. Despite the pot of tea having enough tea for 3 – 4 cups they can only give you 1 cup and saucer according to restaurant policy. Is there a cup shortage I am not aware of?

Delicious for lunch (iced coffee and chicken sandwich were delicious– it’s not just good dessert!) and the staff was so accommodating of food allergies and our two babies– not to mention they were extremely friendly. Will definitely return often.

So far, I tried 3 different cakes from here and all of them had delicate flavor. They were not too sweet and I could taste sweetness from fresh fruit! I am looking forward to trying next one:)

Lets just say Lady M has nothing to worry about.
We were super excited to see a Harbs opening a few blocks away. The neighborhood could a non-​traditional bakery. Our expectations were super high especially after reading the good review from EATER. Unfortunately when expectations are high, sometimes the only place you can go is down.
We had:
Matcha Green Tea Cake — TOO MUCH MATCHA (yes there is such a thing!)! When the hubby opened the box, he said «Why do I smell fish?» To our surprise, the fishy green smell was the cake. We tasted it, and it wasn’t awful but it didn’t hold a candle to Lady M’s green tea mille crêpe.
Chestnut Cake — it had way too much cream. It totally diluted the chestnut flavor. It tasted like cream. Not offensive but not what we had in mind and for $ 10+ for a slice it should have been great! Lady M’s chestnut cake is a million times better.
Less is more people!
Both cakes had red beans in them. Again not offensive but didn’t really add anything to the cakes flavor.
Harbs has similar cakes to Lady M and is at a similar if not higher price point. I would rather walk the extra few blocks and get a decadent dessert that is worth the money vs. paying top dollar for something not enjoyable.

It’s a very Asian style desert shop, everything is light and filled with whipped cream. So much cream — you will know what I mean if you have been to Taiwan, Korea, Japan, type of places and had their desserts.
Honestly spending money here for a break is nice, for a lunch date with a friend, but cake is so so, very one dimensional. They cakes are extra pretty, vs other Asian bakeries, but the taste is not really better.
Will come back to hang out with friends, can leave the cakes.

So cute! Just opened a week ago at the location near me.
I got the green tea mousse cake and it was very mousse-​y? Tasted like they used a lot of matcha powder in this concoction, which personally I liked but not sure if it’s for everyone.
It only opened a week ago and they sell sandwiches and coffee as well. If I come back I am definitely trying their other cakes/​desserts.
The only thing is it is very much on the pricier side… but definitely tastes better than 5 dollar cakes imo… and I had to give them this review bc of the service. They gave me an ice pack and even asked me how long I am traveling and wrapped it very nicely so it holds in place. Very cute bday gift!

Harbs’ 2^nd location is a welcome addition to the sweets scene on the UES, where it makes a lot more sense there than Chelsea. Bright corner space with seating along the street and their display along the avenue. Their mille crêpe cake is more of a fruit layer cake with some crêpe throughout than I expected (especially given their nearby counterpart Lady M’s rendition). Still satisfying, the fact that it’s priced similarly $ 10 per what I call a slice) gets a star docked. Friendly staffer took her time (perhaps more than she should have) slicing, then boxing, then adding an ice pack based on my commute time, then bagging, then ringing up, but I suppose such is the service one should expect given the price point. (Also had an entertaining yet brief conversation about what ‘rare cheesecake’ was.)
Current hours:
Sun-​Thu 11:00am — 9:00pm
Fri-​Sat 11:00am — 10:00pm