Openings

Dessert Award Winner to Bring Her Cookies to Gramercy

Soon, you'll be able to pay $12 for green tea cookies.
Soon, you’ll be able to pay $12 for green tea cookies.haha Photo: Tracy Morford


The winner of Tuesday’s Golden Scoop award for Best Bakery Recipe is coming to Gramercy soon — not that there’s a connection. Kelli Bernard of Amai Tea and Bake House says that plans have been in the works for her new retail bakery and tea house for a while. But the wait is over. “We’re going to open in two months, in early August,” she tells us from Alaska, where she’s currently on vacation. The signature item, naturally, looks to be her prize-winning green-tea sweet, a kind of sugar cookie made with matcha, the tea used in traditional Japanese ceremonies.

Bernard’s classy confections are currently available at only a few stores, like Takashimaya and Ito En New York, our 2003 choice for best tea shop in New York. But Bernard is ready to break out with her own storefront, and her tea cookies and exotic-fruit brownies will no doubt be popular with Gramercy matrons. If you want to get to know the woman behind the cookie, though, there’s no need to wait for the opening: Bernard maintains one of the better dessert blogs, lovescool.

Amai Tea and Bake House, 171 Third Ave., nr. 16th St.; no phone yet.

Earlier: Daniel and Anthos Hit Big at Dessert Awards

Dessert Award Winner to Bring Her Cookies to Gramercy