Angelina
1050 Sixth Avenue • New York, NY 10018
angelinaparisusa.com • 585-438-5347
For a touch of Paris in New York, Angelina ticks all the boxes for French chic, charm, and elegant confectioneries. The iconic tearoom/restaurant/boutique is the American outpost of the renowned teahouse founded in 1903 by Parisian confectioner Antoine Rumpelmayer at 226 Rue de Rivoli. At the time, Paris was the center of the Art Nouveau movement, with writers, painters, and politicians using cafés and tearooms as meeting places for intellectual and artistic inspiration. The luxe Belle Epoque interior of Rumpelmayer’s tea salon, combined with his skill as an expert confectioner, quickly made Angelina the place to be among Paris elites who gathered in the famous salon.
Fast forward to November 16, 2020, to a space just next to New York’s Bryant Park, a 10-acre public park in Midtown that some call “Manhattan’s Town Square.” It’s Angelina’s first location outside of France—there are now other locations in Asia and the Middle East—and it’s situated, fittingly, in one of the loveliest and liveliest areas in the city. The massive new pâtisserie, which spans 3,000 square feet, is divided into three areas: a dining/tearoom; a retail shop that sells Angelina-branded items; and a bakery section where you can buy croissants, macarons, financiers, and Angelina pastries, including its signature Mont-Blanc (meringue, whipped cream, and chestnut cream vermicelli), Trocadero (crunchy hazelnut biscuit, hazelnut cream, chocolate, and ground almonds), and Millefuille (layers of caramelized puffed pastry and vanilla cream). You can also buy sandwiches and salads here to go.
The interior design is evocative of the original Belle Epoque Paris location, with a blue coffered ceiling, crown moldings, wooden floors, elegant chandeliers, and Rococo-style wall murals featuring different regions of France. Vintage-style mosaic tiles at the entrance announce “Angelina,” as if to say, “Tu es arrivé!”
And arrive they do, for yummy Parisian breakfasts and brunch—tea, coffee, or hot chocolate with mini viennoiseries (croissants, pains au chocolat, brioche), bread rolls with pots of jam, eggs Benedict, omelets, crêpes; classic brasserie lunches—Niçoise salad, onion soup, club sandwiches; and à la carte dishes that are served all day, like croque monsieur, tomato and burratina tart, and roasted salmon. Offerings change on a seasonal basis.
And then there’s the tea service ($38), Angelina’s raison d’être. Unlike a traditional English or Irish afternoon tea, this is “all French, all the time” with not a scone in sight. Anthony Battaglia, chief operating officer/manager, explains that in a French tea, “macarons replace scones, clotted cream, and jam.”
The other major difference between the English and French versions is the offering of hot chocolate, especially Angelina’s. “It’s our signature,” Anthony says, “and one of the most decadent drinks you’ll ever taste. It’s a specially blended mix of three types of African cocoas from Niger, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire—a secret recipe, of course!” A pot for two comes with a jug of whipped cream to either float on top or stir into the chocolate. If you can imagine the most delicious chocolate bar you’ve ever tasted served as a warm drink, this is Angelina’s hot chocolate.
Tea choices are also from special house recipes, such as the Angelina blend (oolong tea flavored with exotic fruit and flower petals) and the Mont-Blanc blend (a black tea mélange that mimics the flavors of the signature chestnut pastry along with maple syrup). The two-tiered tea stand, another nod to the French way, comes with a selection of mini pâtisseries and sandwiches.
And if you can’t get enough of the Angelina offerings while visiting the flagship tearoom, you can e-shop for home delivery of its most popular products: its signature hot chocolate (400 grams for $39); eight varieties of tea, including No. 226 (a Chinese black Keemun naturally flavored with notes of chocolate); decorative tins of assorted biscuits, chocolate pralines, and crispy crêpes; and artisanal gianduja and cocoa spreads for your own French-inspired afternoon tea.
Angelina is open for breakfast, brunch, afternoon tea, and dinner on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Reservations not accepted.
