612: Radio Bakery’s Kelly Mencin Rises to Meet the Hype

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0:31it is so exciting to be a baker in the city right now it's so exciting to be a a bakery owner in the city right now i think the community is like just keeps growing and everyone says like new york is so competitive and like of course it is but being influenced by others and like learning from others is also amazing. This is Taste. I'm your host, Eliza Barbanel. Kelly Munson is the pastry chef and co-owner of Radio Bakery, a cult-followed destination for filled croissants and focaccia sandwiches with two locations in Brooklyn. Radio's offerings and the lines are legendary. Today on the show, Kelly talks about opening Rolos, transitioning to radio, and their continued efforts to try and meet demand.

1:21Kelly Menson, this is Tace. Thank you for coming on the podcast. Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I'm really happy to have you in the studio. I think Radio Bakery is such a force in New York's baking and pastry scene, and it's just really fun for me to get to ask you all about it. I guess to start, I'm wondering if you could just give me a little bit of insight into who you are and how you grew up and share an early food memory that you might have. Yeah, an early food memory. So I have a very distinct memory of growing up and my grandma, my grandma Lua, my dad's side, we used to make petitsa.

1:56It's a Slovenian nut roll. Every like Easter and Christmas, we would make it together. Fresh dough, grind walnuts in like this old school nut grinder. very cool but I like remember we had this huge wooden table in the kitchen and we would roll and stretch the dough out to like the whole length of the table and fill it with these fresh nuts and zest and raisins and it like has stuck with me for so long it's just a it's a really great memory I'm imagining just a huge table full of dough and all these delicious things was that like one of the first times you were doing kind of like production baking at scale?

2:42Yeah. I mean, it wasn't even like, yeah, I guess you could say it was at scale because it was a big recipe we would make a lot. I think that is probably the first time, yeah, that we made a lot of one thing. I mean, other memories are just like smaller baking things. I mean, I was a big fan of Martha Stewart and Martha Stewart magazine. And I remember my cousin was getting married and my mom and I threw like a tea shower for her. Basically, I made like little tea sandwiches straight out of Martha Stewart magazine. And I loved it. I loved every minute of it. That's so cute. And I think it's so interesting that like the memory you're sharing is a pastry memory.

3:26I know that like your culinary background, like you were doing savory and things like that as well. I'm wondering if you could tell me a little bit about like that culinary background and maybe like what drew you ultimately to pastry specifically. Yeah. So, you know, I went to school for pastry when I graduated college. I worked in pastry. And then I honestly, you know, when I was working at Bouchon in Napa, the bakery and the bistro shared, like they shared space together. So like the bakery made all the bread and pastries for the bistro. And so I was making the plated desserts for dinner service every night.

4:02And I would have to finish the lemon tarts in the broiler every day on the line. And I was so into it. I was so into the rush and seeing everyone cook on the line. I mean, in high school, I worked at a restaurant. You know, I worked the fryer and dishwasher and I missed it. I missed like the rush of the line. And so, you know, I made the switch and I liked it. But, you know, and I came to New York and worked at Gramercy Tavern, you know, was mentored under my now partners at the business of radio. And I was a good cook. I was a good line cook, organized, efficient. But all my friends would be talking about, you know, savory dishes.

4:56they wanted to make. And all I wanted to talk about and all I dreamed about was pastries and ice cream I wanted to make and pies I wanted to make. And Miroslav was the pastry chef at Gramercy during the time. And I was always popping my head into the pastry room and like asking him questions and just wanting really drawn to it. And I decided, you know, to make, to just go back and funny enough you know Howard and Rafiq were opening when they were in the process of opening Rolo's you know I reached out to Howard and I remember sitting down with them you know in a meeting and being like hey like do you guys need a pastry chef and they only knew me as a savory line cook um and they had no idea that I went to school for pastry that I worked pastry.

5:51And I remember Rafiq being like, do you know how to make ice cream? And I was like, sure do. And they took a chance and hired me as like the pastry chef. And I never looked back. It was, that was a dream job until now. And now I'm, this is my current dream job. Yeah. I'm really interested in like when you had the opportunity to be the opening pastry chef at Rola, it was like, what kind of desserts were you making? And then how much of a shift do you think that was to be pivoting into the kind of like daytime bakery format? Yeah. So, I mean, when we opened Rolo's, it was January of 2021. So it didn't open as a restaurant, right?

6:30Oh, it was like the cafe era. Yeah. Those sandwiches. Well, so those sandwiches became radio bakery sandwiches. I know because the tofu sandwich is like I was obsessed with that and then I couldn't find it for a while and now I can find it again. Exactly. And so, I mean, that is the reason why radio exists, right? Because Rolo's opened during the pandemic. They couldn't run it as a restaurant. You know, I spent the majority of the summer of 2020 recipe testing ice creams and focaccia and cookies because we decided that like we would have to open as like a cafe grocery store. and it was so successful right the sandwiches the bread the cookies you know we had the bowl list back then I don't know if you had that no what is that it was so Rafiq one of one of my partners he grew up with it in the Dutch Netherlands it was it is basically like milk dough rolled in like dark muscovado sugar and cinnamon and it's baked like hot and fast and then flipped over and in the Netherlands it's it's served with like a big schmear butter so it's like a cinnamon roll and we served it for a bit at at radio until we until we moved to like real kind of like American-esque cinnamon rolls but yeah I mean so Rolo's opened as this grocery store cafe situation and it took off and I was like single-handedly making everything for it And then, you know, we were able to start doing outdoor dining.

8:14And so, you know, there were a lot of transitions. It was a lot of changes. And then I started developing, you know, more desserts. But we always knew, I mean, Rolo's is like simple, straightforward, but perfectly executed cooking, right? And so we knew that the desserts would have to be the same. um familiar it's just like really fucking delicious um and so you know I think what was the first menu item I don't even know I think we started like with a brown butter tart um and then you know I want new we wanted to have like a chocolate situation on the menu and so the menu always stayed quite small um but very with very distinct items always like a chocolate item, always a fruity item.

9:03And then we introduced this like pavlova-esque type of item and always with homemade ice creams. And so that really deeply influenced radio again, because a lot of the recipes that I used then, I still use today in like croissant type items. I mean, the brown butter custard from the tart, that's like everyone's favorite filling when we do our apple croissant in the fall um and even like rollo savory recipes like Rafiq developed my partner developed this mushroom lasagna for like valentine's day and we made that filling is now our filling for our mushroom croissant at radio um and it's just like it's very cohesive yeah you know it's funny because i've eaten at both of these places but And I knew that they were related, but I didn't necessarily see the through line.

10:00And it's interesting how recipes can evolve and shift in that kind of way. Yeah, I mean, that's the whole point, right? Like using your previous knowledge to work your way through and make it more cohesive. I mean, if there's one thing that I learned the most from Gramercy, it was seasoning. And it was seasoning with acid. I think that is what was so pivotal to me for working in restaurants was that you don't see a lot in just pastry chefs is seasoning things properly with salt and acid or vinegar. And, you know, all of the pastries at radio get tasted and seasoned almost every day. The mushroom croissant, we taste every day if it needs more malden or if it needs more fig vinegar.

10:56Our peach croissant, you know, we do a layer of like a sherry vinegar glaze on it. Our strawberry jam that we made this week, we finished with some tart tart vinegar. I think it's it's I think it's what really elevates radio and what really helped me like was a big learning curve for me. Yeah, I think that really comes across. And when you're talking about croissant, I think someone listening might be picturing like the classic like French croissant or maybe like a stuffed almond croissant. But the croissants at Radio are not like that. They're almost like a cup of croissant dough that then has filling inside of it.

11:33Is that right? Yeah. So when we developed Radio early on, we knew we wanted it to be like a croissant focused bakery. And by saying croissant, we just meant like croissant dough. Laminated pastry. Exactly. Laminated pastry. And, you know, other places I had worked at would make two doughs like croissant dough and then Danish dough. And the only difference in the Danish dough is that it usually had milk or eggs. Croissant dough typically is a lean dough and no eggs. and I remember talking to friends when we were developing all this stuff and being like what do you do I need two recipes that seems so silly like for just classic croissants and then you know filled Danish type pastries and a lot of people I talked to were like not worth it like not worth it and so yeah we decided like to focus on one specific dough laminated croissant dough and turn it into as many different things as possible.

12:34Yeah. So consistency is like so important in any bakery and like having one perfect dough and being able to make 10 different things out of it is a great thing for bottom line and for like creating lots of different items. Yeah. I was going to ask about this because I feel like radio, like you're always introducing new variations on things. And I would imagine it might be easier to do that if you know that the base recipe is consistent. But like, what about the croissant makes it such a good vehicle for this kind of like riffing and experimentation? Yeah. So when I developed the recipe for the croissant dough, you know, I went through so many iterations.

13:14And honestly, if you look at all like croissant recipes, they're not that different. But I think what makes Radio's croissant dough different is it has a good amount of salt in it, not too much sugar. We use two kinds of like pre-ferments for flavor um one is like just a one day pre-ferment where like flour and water and yeast get mixed and like develop flavor the night before but then we also use our croissant like off cuts and that one reduces waste um two helps with like extensibility of the dough but three adds more flavor um but i think the biggest difference of our croissant dough that I notice and like a lot of my industry friends like can tell the difference between our croissant and other croissants is the flour that we use.

14:07We love Small Valley Milling bread flour. They're from like Lancaster, PA. And it is so, it's just so delicious. And I really think that makes the flavor very distinct and just elevates just a classic croissant dough into something a little bit more tastier. Yeah, I think it does really have that kind of like nuanced depth of flavor. And it means that you can have fruit and custard and all of these like sweet things and that the resulting pastry isn't too sweet. Yeah, I mean, that is one huge thing for us is like nothing should ever be too sweet. Big, big on balancing flavors. Yeah, and Radio opened in 2023 in Greenpoint and then y 'all opened a second location in Prospect Heights just a couple of months ago.

14:56From your end of things, like, does your job get a lot harder when you go from one location to two? You know what? It actually, this, it's funny. I mean, we've been very busy, so my job has just been harder in that aspect. But it has been great because now there is, like, more people that are learning and there's a lot more intel that is being shared. So, like, my sous chefs and manager at one location could be focusing on something and finding a new, better way to do it. And then they're teaching that to the other location. Right. And so we're not it's not like one bubble anymore. It's like two different.

15:37They are different businesses, but we're sharing a lot of the same, most of the same recipes and components. And it just has created like a lot of ongoing, amazing conversations about how to make things better or how to, you know, different ways of doing things. And I think it has made my job actually easier for, I mean, in the future, it's going to be easier because right now it's a little hard. But once we get our once we get going, because I that has made the team stronger, it has given them like more independence instead of me just focusing on one bakery. It is allowed like the bakery chef like Zoe Underhill.

16:25She is like completely stepped up and she's made the bakery her own. And I'm just there to support her. And it's like a really, really amazing thing to see and watch. Yeah, you're building the bench. Exactly. Hi there, it's Matt, co-host of the show. We are currently running a This Is Taste listener survey, and we'd love to hear from you. Do you have a guest request? A restaurant you wish we'd visit to talk about on Three Things? What about a lesser-known cookbook author who deserves a spot in our studio chair? You can let us know by clicking the link in our show notes to complete the survey. It will only take a couple minutes, I swear, and will help us continue to make the best show possible.

17:06That's the This Is Taste listener survey, link in our show notes. From February 20th to March 7th, dive into Canada's biggest culinary festival, Montreal en Lumière, an exclusive partnership with the McCord Stewart Museum and its exhibition, On the Menu Montreal, a restaurant story. The 2026 festival invites food lovers on a flavorful journey through time. Montreal's top restaurateurs will reimagine 65 years of the city's iconic astronomy, crafting inventive, nostalgia-inspired dishes with a modern twist. Prepare your palate. World-renowned chefs, including several Michelin-starred talents, will team up with over 80 of Montreal's finest local chefs to create unforgettable, one-of-a-kind menus.

17:52The full program is available at MontrealOnLumiere.com, presented by Lotto Quebec in collaboration with National Bank. I'm curious if the two bakeries feel similar in terms of like the crowd favorites, the demand, like or are they kind of two separate versions of radio? Great question. I have like grappled with this for the past couple of months. They are pretty different. Really? Yeah. So I think so our first location in Greenpoint is just smashingly busy all the time. Yeah. The line, I think, has been the topic of much conversation and debate and food media on Instagram, etc. Yeah. The line.

18:39Look, we are as efficient as possible when moving people through the line. But the line can only go so fast because there's so much to see and there's so much to look at. And, you know, we don't want to rush guests into having to choose, you know, so fast. But, you know, the lines, I mean, what makes the bakeries different is surprisingly at Greenpoint, it's a big push for sandwiches. Like the morning rush is insane. And it's for sandwiches? And yeah, so like the morning pastry rush, you know, happens at like 8 a.m. But then the sandwich rush at 11 o 'clock is is crazy. I mean, people now know that we put the sandwiches out at 11 and there may be a line that forms outside, but it moves fast, especially during the week, because we do get a lot of regulars.

19:37Like we have people that come in multiple times a day for like a coffee and a croissant in the morning and then like a sandwich later in the day. And Underhill is like, I don't know if it's because there's more variety in the neighborhood, but people are not as we're not selling as much sandwiches there as we are at at our Greenpoint location. And but we are selling a lot more pastries. And so it's it's just a little bit different. Not in a bad way, but just the the wants of the neighborhood is different. That's really interesting. Now I'm being like armchair psychologist about this, but I wonder if like there's a different, like Greenpoint, I think, has a lot of people who work from home or maybe they, you know, work in the restaurant industry.

20:27So they're around in the day and not at night. And like people are kind of like trying to get their little treat lunch going more, whereas maybe Prospect Heights, people are, you know, commuting into work in the morning and stopping by or something like that. Does that resonate? Yeah, we're definitely seeing that. definitely seeing like the work from home people during the week at Greenpoint. And then, you know, Prospect Heights, it is like a lot of big boxes and families in the morning getting like a lot of pastries. The weekends at both locations is a lot of out-of-towners. You know, the regulars kind of know to come during the week.

21:02We're busy during the week, but it's not like crazy lines. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like there's a lot of memes about like, doesn't anyone have a job? like when you see the line of people. But I think the reality is like we live in a city where so many people have different kinds of jobs that happen at different times. That means that there's always going to be enough people who if they want to make a pilgrimage to get a good pastry, like they're going to do it. Yeah, and they are most likely going to be able to get it. I mean, I will say during the week, just because the weekend is truly out-of-towners.

21:32But again, my friends will also show up during the week. So I can't even, who's to say, but we're really lucky. We're like, we're really lucky that like people are excited enough to wait in a line for our pastries and and our sandwiches and our bread. And it's it's been a lot to navigate, but it's been great. Yeah. Do you how do you feel about like, is there such a thing as as too much hype? Like, do you feel like you need to be reaching a level that maybe is even impossible just because like there's so much conversation about it? Oh, gosh, the hype. Um, you know, when people like ask like the hype bakery, the viral things, I just like, oh, I just cringe because I, radio was never meant to be, never in my wildest dreams that I think it was going to be this, this crazy busy or hyped or viral.

22:27Right. Like it was just a dream for me to open a bakery in New York. Like I was lucky enough for that. And then, you know, to to get like the notoriety and to see how excited people are. And, you know, it's just the way of the world now that like you could you do something really well and then it like takes off and then you're on TikTok and Instagram and it's harder to sell them on it after that. Right. But. But do I think we could like there's a level that that is like we want to reach? I am I am fine where we are, I guess, if that's the question. I if anything, like. I want to like take a couple notches down.

23:15Yeah, I mean, I will say like I don't know what I'm saying. It's not your fault because it's no one's fault. But like it's not like the rainbow bagel of 2010 that was made specifically to pop on Instagram. Like you, you're not doing things because they look super crazy. You're just executing at a really high level. And I think that there's just a lot of interest around pastry and baked goods in New York in general right now. Yeah, I mean, for sure. And that's that is what I think that is what has made like the hype thing more like manageable for me is that, yeah, we're not, you know, we're not making anything like crazy.

23:52We're just executing at a high level and making delicious things that people want to eat. And like if people want to line up for it, please. Great. Thank you. But like, you know, we're not going out of our way to make like an Instagram worthy croissant. Um, and, you know, it has been amazing to see, like, how many bakeries have opened basically during the pandemic. And a lot of them were, were, came from restaurants, right? Laurel came from a restaurant. Now I'm, like, blinking. But, well, you mentioned Miro before and, like, these bakery that opened recently. Like, they certainly have a lot of lines in demand.

24:30Libre from Lucy. Yes. All of those spots. And it's because they do things really well. And like it is so exciting to be a baker in the city right now. It's so exciting to be a bakery owner in the city right now. I think that the community is like just keeps growing. And, you know, I am always reaching out to owners and friends and talking and seeing what they're making. And it's a very good thing. I mean, everyone says like New York is so competitive. And like, of course it is. But being influenced by others and like learning from others is also amazing. And I think a lot of the bakers and the owners in the city are very influenced by each other right now.

25:18And it feels like almost very collaborative. Yeah. And I think also it speaks to like the way that a pastry can fit into somebody's day. Like it's not as expensive as a whole meal out. You could do a little pastry crawl and hit up three places in their neighborhood. And it kind of can be like a rising tide lifting all boats situation. Yes, all rising tides. I love that. Yeah. I wonder also, like, when you're developing the menu, I know that, like, you're not making things because they're going to go viral. But, like, do you ever know, oh, this is going to be really popular? You know, some things, yes.

25:51Other things are always a surprise. I mean, when we made, like, the original menu at Radio, we knew that we wanted specific flavors and shapes and combinations, right? And so, like, we wanted a citrusy thing. So that was the morning bun. We wanted a savory thing that was the pretzel bear claw and the scallion sesame twist. We wanted a cinnamon thing, the cinnamon roll. You know, like, so we have, like, very distinct categories of what we wanted to, you know, for everything to fit into. And then, you know, the seasonal items, I think because they change so much, they are always, like, a big hit.

26:36But, you know, even, like, I guess the most, maybe one of the most surprising things that was a really big hit was last year we decided to do hot cross buns. And, you know, I remember posting on Instagram and like not really getting a lot of traction on it. And the weekend of Easter came and people like freaked out over them. They're very cute. Yeah, they're cute. But I was like, this wasn't what I expected. Right. And then like this year we were like, they're way too much work and we can't we can't do it. But a lot of people, one of the most surprising things I think that still is like beloved by a lot is the tofu sandwich.

27:19And it's not exactly what we had at Rolo's, but like people are always surprised by like how delicious it is. Right. But for the most part, I think, you know, the items that like are the most popular and loved by all are typically the rotating seasonal specials, I think just because they're unique. Yeah. And I think it's like the often like the first taste of the new produce. Like sometimes you guys get it before I like at the Four Green Farmers Market. It's like three weeks behind the Grand Army one. Yeah. Now I'm just complaining. But like I still haven't been able to buy fresh strawberries at the market.

28:00But I know that like all of the bakeries around the city that, you know, you have your farmers that are delivering to you, whatever. Like you guys kind of can really get in there and have this first taste of the season. And I think in a place like New York that has really strict seasons, like that's just very exciting. Oh, yeah. And, you know, and you do see like the first bakery, you know, like one of the bakeries posts and then like everyone quickly like follows. Yeah. Who has rhubarb first? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's really funny, but it's also like, that's exactly what I was talking about is like, we are all very much in this together, like all the bakeries in New York City.

28:33And like, you know, we all want to use the same great products and like, but we're all doing something different from it. And it's great to see who is making what. Yeah, I'm curious if you can speak to it all, like what you're looking forward to making with summer produce now that it's starting to come in. Yeah, great question. I know for sure. So last year we ran this tomato croissant that kind of, did you try it? No, but I'm grinning right now because I saw this and I was like, this looks so good. And I just have not an early riser, Kelly. So it's hard for me. Okay, fine. I mean, we're at a point where we're able to make more.

29:09Okay, I'll come back. I'll set an alarm for this. Will you explain it? Because it looks crazy. So we tested this. I tested this a lot last year. We knew we wanted to do something with tomatoes. and I knew, you know, we always do different kind of like fillings for the croissants. And the original idea was like at Rolo's, we used to make these gougiere, which is like a patechew filling, typically with cheese. And so I was like, oh, like gougiere tomatoes, that would be fucking delicious. We tried this filling. It was a little bit too cloying and like tough of a filling in the croissants. and then started thinking and thinking.

29:52And we were like, ah, like a savory souffle kind of filling. Like, again, using like my culinary experience and thinking about, you know, things that would work. And so we made like this Parmesan souffle filling and like not a typical souffle filling, like no whipping the egg whites, right? Because we don't need the height. We just need like a custard, like a savory custard. And so that's what we created, like a savory Parmesan custard. And then we're cutting like, obviously, the best of the best tomatoes from like Lancaster or like New York farms. They're getting seasoned very simply, you know, with olive oil and salt and pepper, blasted in the oven.