Artisan Dessert Parlor: $5 Matcha Puffs at Bibble & Sip

Bibble & Sip sells a matcha cream puff for $5.00 at 253 West 51st Street, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, and that small green choux bun is the reason most people walk in. The shop opens at 8am from Monday to Friday and at 9am on weekends, closing at 8pm every day. If you want an artisan dessert parlor that works around a Broadway curtain, this is the one with a pastry case built for a ten-minute stop.

Gary Chan created the shop, and the About page states the idea plainly: Chinese American and Asian flavor profiles made with French techniques. That explains why a classic choux shell holds matcha cream, why a croissant gets black sesame and almond, and why an egg tart arrives with a burnt-sugar lid. The Infatuation dates the opening to 2014 and notes that Chan trained at the International Culinary Center in Manhattan.

Everything is made in house, from the croissants to the filled puffs, according to the same page. That matters for a dessert counter on a block full of chain coffee. The case changes with the calendar, too: September brought mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the homepage is running a Halloween costume contest from October 24 to 31, 2026, so the end of this month is a lively week to visit.

Start with the matcha cream puff at $5.00. The tea flavor is grassy rather than sugary, and the shell stays crisp if you eat it within the hour. The mango sticky rice cream puff costs $8.50 and is the richer choice, built around the Thai dessert of coconut rice and ripe mango. If you are feeding a group backstage or at the office, the box of twelve Cremini Puffs is $32.00.

The cakes are where the cute factor peaks. The Panda Cake is $14.50, a small mousse dome finished with a bear face, and the Soup Dumpling, also $14.50, is a cake shaped to look like a xiao long bao. For something less decorative, the Brûlée Egg Tart is $5.00 and the Black Sesame Almond Croissant is $6.00, the two best picks if you want texture over spectacle.

An honest note: skip the $5.75 Lucky Alpaca Macaron unless you are buying it as a photo prop. Macarons travel poorly in a theater bag, and you get more flavor for the money from the egg tart. The Hong Kong Dream whole cake at $55.00 is a celebration order rather than an impulse buy, so plan it as a birthday cake, not a mid-afternoon snack.

The online ordering page has one firm rule: orders must be placed 24 hours in advance. That makes the phone the real tool on a show day. Call in the morning with your list, pick it up before the matinee, and you avoid gambling on what is left in the case after the lunch rush.

Custom and corporate orders, such as themed cakes for a cast party or a branded box of puffs, go through a separate contact form on the Custom Orders page rather than the counter. Walk-ins can still buy straight from the display, but popular items like the panda cakes are small-batch. If the case looks thin, take the egg tart and croissant, which are the most dependable items, and pre-order the novelty cakes for another day.

The street fills twice a day. Matinee crowds pass in the early afternoon on show days, and evening crowds build from about an hour before curtain, when 51st Street becomes a corridor between the Gershwin Theatre and Eighth Avenue. The quietest window is the first hour of the morning, when the case is full and office workers are still at their desks.

Evening visitors have a narrow margin because the shop closes at 8pm, which is close to curtain time for many evening shows. Buy your box about an hour before the performance, eat one puff on the sidewalk, and save the rest for intermission. Shows that end late leave you with nothing on the way back to the subway, so the pastry run has to come first.

Expect three kinds of customers. Theatergoers with tickets in hand grab a single puff and leave. Hell's Kitchen locals come back for the croissants and know the staff. A third group, mostly visitors with cameras out, lines up for the animal-shaped cakes and spends longer at the glass than at the register. The Infatuation files the shop under Hell's Kitchen, while TheaterMania calls the block Theater District, and both labels fit this stretch of 51st.

The unspoken rule is to decide before you reach the front. The case is dense with similar-looking pastel items, and the person behind you probably has a curtain time. Point, pay, and step aside to take photos, which keeps the line moving for everyone and wins you some goodwill if you come back for a pre-order later in the week.

Leave with your box and walk east along 51st Street toward Broadway. You pass the Gershwin Theatre and Circle in the Square, two of the larger Broadway houses, within a block of the shop. Turn south on Broadway and Times Square opens up four blocks later, which is the fastest way to work off a mango sticky rice puff before the show.

For a calmer route, head west instead toward Eighth Avenue and the tenement blocks of Hell's Kitchen, where Ninth Avenue is lined with small restaurants for dinner before or after dessert. The walk takes about five minutes and puts you near the 50th Street station on the C and E lines if you are heading downtown afterward.

Address: 253 West 51st Street, New York, NY 10019, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue. Hours: Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm, Saturday and Sunday 9am to 8pm. Subway: the 50th Street stations on the C and E at Eighth Avenue and the 1 at Broadway are each about two minutes away on foot.

Prices from the online menu: matcha cream puff $5.00, mango sticky rice cream puff $8.50, box of 12 Cremini Puffs $32.00, Panda Cake $14.50, Brûlée Egg Tart $5.00. Online orders need 24 hours of notice. Use the Karpo APP to save this stop next to your theater, so the pastry run and the curtain time sit in one plan.