Vegan Bakery Near Me on the Upper West Side: Peacefood's Dessert Case

Peacefood's bakery case changes every day, and on October 14, 2026 the board listed a blueberry scone with vanilla glaze, a chocolate chip pumpkin muffin and a gluten-free pumpkin cheesecake. The fully vegan cafe sits at 460 Amsterdam Avenue on the corner of 82nd Street, open from 9:30am daily, and a whole six-inch custom cake starts at $60. For anyone running a vegan bakery near me search on the Upper West Side, this is the long-running neighborhood answer.

Peacefood is not only a bakery, and that is its advantage. It is a full plant-based restaurant serving home-style global dishes for lunch and dinner, with a dessert case and a custom bakery operating out of the same kitchen. You can sit down for a meal and leave with a whole cake, or swing by for a muffin and coffee. NYC Tourism describes the case as piled with refined-sugar-free giant cookies and cakes, with raw tarts rotating in.

Start with the daily bakes, which the cafe posts on its homepage under the heading The Dailies. Each day there is a soup, a scone, a muffin and a gluten-free biscuit, plus specials. The October 14 lineup paired a creamy pumpkin soup with that glazed blueberry scone and the chocolate chip pumpkin muffin, while the gluten-free biscuit was garlic bread flavored and the specials included the pumpkin cheesecake and a gluten-free pumpkin loaf.

The raw desserts are the item that sets peacefood apart from cupcake shops. The kitchen makes a raw cashew cream cheesecake, sold whole at $120 for a nine-inch, and a raw key lime pie at $100 for a ten-inch. The Infatuation singled out that key lime pie as a good stand-in for the real thing if you avoid cooked food or gluten. A raw cacao mousse pie, $80 for nine inches, rounds out the no-bake lineup.

Cheesecake fans have two baked options. The peanut butter cheesecake and the plain cheesecake are each $90 for a nine-inch, and you can add strawberry, blueberry, raspberry or guava jam, or a chocolate ganache drizzle, for $5. A tray of tiramisu runs $80, the banana bread loaf costs $27, and a seasonal gluten-free loaf is $30. Those loaves are the best value in the case for a weekend house guest or an office breakfast.

Cupcakes come in three sizes for custom orders. Minis cost $3 each or $36 a dozen, standards are $4 each or $48 a dozen, and the muffin-sized version is $5.50 each. Chocolate and vanilla bases are standard, carrot and red velvet add $5 a dozen, and frostings range from chocolate ganache buttercream to raspberry. Layer cakes run $60 for six inches, $80 for eight, $105 for ten and $125 for a twelve-inch that serves up to 26.

An honest note on the savory side. The signature chickpea fries are famous, but The Infatuation joked that they eat more like chickpea bricks than fries. If you want something crisp, skip them and order from the dessert case instead, where the kitchen is clearly strongest. Another thing to skip: arriving with a group of seven at Saturday dinner and expecting a quick table. Larger parties face per-person minimums based on the day and time.

Custom orders follow a strict calendar. The bakery opens its order forms month by month, about seven days before the first of each month, and accepts only a small number of whole and custom items each day. Submitting a form is not a confirmed order, since the team calls or emails to finalize and take payment. Every custom item needs at least 48 hours after confirmation, and pickup runs between 10am and 9pm.

The cafe stays open until 9:30pm Sunday through Wednesday and until 10pm Thursday through Saturday, so a dessert stop after a museum day or a Beacon Theatre show works well. If custom slots for the month are already full, the plan B is simple: walk in and buy whatever cookies, scones and slices are in the case that day.

The room leans casual, with an artistic decor the cafe itself highlights, and the crowd reflects the neighborhood. Expect Upper West Side parents ordering a dozen minis for a class party, longtime vegans who have eaten here for more than a decade, students from the nearby schools, and museum visitors who wandered west from Central Park West. Weekday afternoons are the calmest window to linger over a scone and an oat milk latte by the windows.

The story starts with two vegans. Peter Lu, a Hong Kong transplant who went vegan in 2007, opened peacefood on the Upper West Side with partner Eric, and the copyright on the cafe's website dates the business to 2009. A second outpost opened near Union Square in 2013. Today the homepage lists the Amsterdam Avenue address, and the cafe keeps a separate wholesale and custom bakery arm, reachable at pfcbakery@gmail.com, that supplies cakes to the neighborhood.

Make an afternoon of it. The American Museum of Natural History is two avenues east on Central Park West, and Theodore Roosevelt Park around it is a pleasant place to eat a muffin on a bench. Walk west to Broadway for Zabar's at 80th Street, the food emporium that has been there since 1934, then continue to Riverside Park for the Hudson views at sunset. Heading north on Amsterdam, the blocks between 82nd and 86th are packed with small shops.

Practical notes: peacefood is at 460 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10024, on the 82nd Street corner. Gluten-free swaps cost $10 extra on layer cakes and $5 a dozen on cupcakes, and nut-free availability varies. Online ordering for pickup and delivery runs through the website. Who will love it: families planning birthdays, raw-food eaters, and anyone who wants dinner and dessert in one stop. Croissant purists should head downtown to a pâtisserie instead.