*Bloggers note: the old locations at 2740 Broadway closed in March 2025 and the new location under a different owner opened at 2664 Broadway in June 2026)
The front of the old bakery location at 2740 Broadway
I discovered Silver Moon Bakery when walking around the Manhattanville/Bloomingdale neighborhood for my walking project, “MywalkinManhattan.com” and the couple of times I have been here, the pastries have been excellent.
The selection is amazing
The first time I visited the store, I just happened upon it. I needed a snack and walked in to see what they had in the cases. This is not the ordinary bakery with the same old things that the other bakeries carry. They are a little more adventurous in their baking and create some rather unusual pastries.
They are by no means cheap. It is not as expensive as some of their counterparts south of 96th Street especially on the East Side of Manhattan but their quality speaks for itself and everything I have eaten here is excellent (See reviews on TripAdvisor).
On my first trip to the bakery, I had a Crumuffin, a combination of a Croissant and a muffin. What made it unusual was that it was filled with chocolate Nutella and baked. It then was topped with vanilla crème and dusted with powder sugar. It had a soft, chewy texture to it and you could taste the layers in the pastry. Each bite gave it it’s own complexity. You tasted multiple flavors in each bite depending on how you bite into it. It had a sweet buttery flavor to it and it was not overwhelming sugary.
The Crumuffin at Silver Moon Bakery is amazing!
The Crumuffin is filled with Cream and Nutella and is a delight to bite into
I also had their glazed Brioche, which again had a rich buttery taste to it. It was a large ball that was lightly covered with a powder sugar glaze and the combination of the sweetness of the glaze with the sweet butter made a sweet/savory flavor that bursts in your mouth. It is also quite large so it takes a few bites to get through this sweet fluffy ball.
The Brioche at Silver Moon Bakery frosted or unfrosted is wonderful.
On my second trip to the bakery, I made a special trip up Broadway to come here and I wanted to try something new and original but I decided on a Linzer tart and it was delicious. The cookie had a rich taste of sweet butter and sugar, the way a quality baked product should have and it was layered with a raspberry jelly that tasted like it was homemade.
On another trip, I tried their French Meringue, which was light, fluffy and sweet. It melted in my mouth with every bite like a piece of cotton candy. It broke apart with each bite but still the sweet crunchiness was amazing.
The cookies and bread at Silver Moon Bakery.
When I visited the neighborhood again (which I have to admit in just a year keeps changing), I tried the Blueberry Danish ($3.95). It was delicious. The pastry was perfectly cooked with a chewy caramelized outside and a soft buttery consistency in the middle. It was studded with fresh blueberries and vanilla cream in between the pastry dough. It was delicious.
I was in such a good mood that day, I even bought a homeless woman a cupcake, which I thought was odd of me but could tell the woman was not faking it. There was something about her that rung through me and I bought her one of the pink sugar cupcakes. I am not sure how she liked it but I saw her taking big bites out of it and had a smile on her face. Every once in a while it is good to do a good deed.
On another recent trip to the bakery, I tried the Apricot Danish ($3.95), that was a swirl of pastry dough with cinnamon sugar with a delicious center of apricot puree in the center and with each bite you could taste the sweet fruit. I also tried one of their California danishes ($3.95) which was brioche dough with cinnamon sugar rolled into the swirl of the dough and then topped with more cinnamon sugar. Each bite had a sweet caramelized flavor to it and there is a nice richness in the buttery brioche dough.
Cinnamon Pastries
The best part about Silver Moon Bakery is that the staff is really nice and helpful. A big change from some of the French bakeries on the Upper East Side of Manhattan who act like you are buying a diamond ring from them. They can get very snooty when you question why this tiny pastry is $10.00. Not here.
The staff is very friendly and engaging. They come up with good suggestions when you are not sure what to decide to buy. Most of the time, I just buy both if I am hungry. The best part is that their product always tastes fresh no matter what time of day you go in. Some bakeries in the city, the product has been sitting around all day and even though it looks nice, its hard or dry. Not here. Everything I have had tastes like it was just baked or baked in small batches.
The inside of Silver Moon bakery.
This little ‘gem’ should not be missed when visiting Manhattanville. If you are visiting your children at Columbia University, take the walk a few blocks down south and stop at Silver Moon Bakery and try their high quality pastries.
In March 2025, the bakery closed (but has since reopened in a new location):
The new location at 2664 Broadway under a new owner:
The bakery reopened in 2026 under the new owner who owned Buttercup Bakery and renamed it Silver Moon Buttercup Bakery at 2664 Broadway.
The front of the new silver Moon Buttercup Bakery at 2664 Broadway
The new bakery has the same feel and a lot of the same items as the old bakery. It opened under a new owner who had bought much of the equipment and fixturing and retained a lot of the staff including the former manager and baker. It seems to be a hit right now since the opening.
I had another beautiful day in the city. I can’t believe this is fall with the 82-degree days. It is so funny to see so many people in outdoor cafes this late into the season. It reminded me of when I was walking Morningside Heights in February and it was 82 degrees then. The weather has been very wacky this year and everyone says there is no Global Warming. That’s hard to believe.
I finally managed to sneak into the city to walk the Avenues of the Upper Upper West Side. I had spent the morning in the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen again and they put me back to work in the kitchen. By the time I left chopping loads of chicken breasts up for the next day’s lunch, I was exhausted. With Thanksgiving around the corner, it is going to be busy in the prep kitchen. I had been in the prep kitchen during the holidays, and it is a lot of work.
I started my walk this afternoon by relaxing with lunch at Zhong Hua Chinese Restaurant at 23 West 100th Street (See review on TripAdvisor), a tiny hole in the wall Chinese restaurant I passed when walking Manhattanville. This is right on the border at the official end of the Upper West Side meets the Douglas Housing Projects. I could tell most of the customers came from the housing projects by the customer base walking in. They must be very loyal because the staff knew who everyone was and said hello.
There are a couple of tables to sit at in the restaurant and it is not the fanciest place, but the food is not bad. I had a Sweet & Sour Chicken lunch special. It was okay. Typical Chinese American cooking. It tasted like fresh Chicken McNuggets with a standard red sweet sauce and served with white rice. The combination lunch special was $6.00 with a Coke and was not bad. Not the greatest but not bad. It filled me up for my long walk around the neighborhood.
The Sweet & Sour Pork was okay
Columbus Avenue was my first part of the walk. Columbus Avenue was the new trendy avenue when the city started to gentrify in the early 80’s through the crash of ’87 and now has settled into a more upper middle-class street with a combination of upscale stores and chains. There are so many banks on the avenue that I do not understand how they survive.
This was at one shining moment the center of the island with all the new innovative restaurants and shops opening up here starting with Museum Café opening right across the street from the American Museum of Natural History (it now houses a Shake Shack ten restaurants later). As someone noted in New York Magazine, it looks like a suburban mall with the parking (which is true for most of the island now).
In the upper 90’s, Columbus Avenue has turned into a series of large apartment buildings that must have been started in the late 90’s. It has changed the complexity of the neighborhood which was once all low-lining buildings. The border shared with Manhattanville gets even weirder with a Whole Foods and new luxury shopping one block from the Douglas Houses. It is a strange move, but it seems that everyone is using the Whole Foods from all over the neighborhood, so some marketing person was thinking.
The Whole Foods
The Whole Foods at 808 Columbus Avenue and West 96th Street
The transition of the Upper West by the Whole Foods and the Douglass Houses
Once you cross over to the 80’s blocks, the architecture turns back into the more traditional low-rise buildings of the turn of the last century which is what gives the neighborhood its charm. Like the rest of the city, there have been a rash of small business closings around the block as the twenty-year leases that were signed in the 90’s when the neighborhood was still transitioning have come up and the complaints that the rents have tripled and quadrupled. The mix is now around the museum bunch of extremely expensive restaurants and realtors. This is not the West Side I remember.
One store that does stand out as being different is the Wild Bird Feed at 565 Columbus Avenue that seems more a hospital than a retail store. It saves pigeons and doves and brings them back to health. The rest is a combination of chain stores and expensive decorating places.
Amsterdam Avenue is pretty much the same as the parts in the areas above 90th Street is new apartment buildings and stores. Most of the chains have moved up to this area with the new buildings. As you move to the lower 90’s, Amsterdam Avenue becomes a series of neighborhood stores and restaurants that are strictly local. There are many great ethnic restaurants as well as all the services from laundry places to shoe repairs and drycleaners. They have really kept Amsterdam Avenue for the neighborhood.
At the corner of 84th and Amsterdam Avenue again is the Urban Assembly Garden that now is producing fall vegetables. It is amazing how everything changes in just two weeks. The kids were out cleaning up the beds when I visited again, and the teachers are eager for you to see what the kids are doing. Try to stop by the stand and at least say ‘hello’ to the kids.
Urban Assembly Garden on West 84th Street and Amsterdam Avenue
Across the street from the garden is West Side Kids at 498 Amsterdam Avenue which was mobbed with families who were shopping after school. There are some small restaurants a few doors down that were loaded with families. I could tell the parents here like their East Side counterparts really look after their kids’ education and welfare.
West Side Kids is now located at 201 West 84th Street (Closed December 2025)
The inside of the new West Side Kids (closed December 2025)
Broadway from 96th Street to 84th Street is a series of chain stores and independents. This part of the avenue is quite nice because it has the island in the middle of the road with trees and flowers still holding on from the summer months. It is being lined with brand new apartment buildings that are sprouting up all along the avenue. I have never seen a block so in transition. This is Broadway from 110th Street straight down to Columbus Circle.
When you turn the corner onto West End Avenue, it is a whole other world. This is the land of prewar apartment buildings, old brownstones and single-family homes. The side streets are unique brownstones where it looks like no two houses are the same. It is straight out of an exterior shot of ‘Sex and the City’.
If you are in the city for Halloween, there is a great holiday display outside the brownstone at West End Avenue and 90th Street. All sorts of movable ghouls and ghost are on display with a pumpkin demon flying up the side of the house. Someone is in the theater business here.
Halloween on the Upper West Side, the owner is very creative
There is a beautiful, tutored mansion that is being renovated on the corner at 274 West End Avenue and 95th Street that you have to see. It looks like a traditional German home attached to a prewar apartment building. This is the side of The Pomander Walk complex.
There are pillared twin mansions on the opposite corners of West End Avenue between 91st and 90th Streets with matching brownstones in the middle of the two homes. Both are being fixed up and the owners are very lucky to own such a beautiful, graceful homes. They look well-maintained and a little out of place with all the apartment buildings on the block.
West End Avenue has many architectural treasures
The Swan House at 95th and West End Avenue is a elegant old building with interesting landscaping around it. People do love their potted plants. The fortress like apartment building at 645 West End Avenue has the most interesting light features on the outside. They look like a giant is holding lanterns. It is straight out of the late 1890’s. I have never seen a light feature like this one. The building was designed by architect Gaetan Ajello and was built in 1912 (City Realty).
The very unique light fixtures outside the building
These are so beautiful
At West End Avenue and 84th Street, there is a plaque to the famous composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, who lived in the building from 1926 to 1943. He did some of his most famous work when living in this building. Word of advice don’t linger too long reading the plaque. The doorman will give you funny looks.
There is another gorgeous mansion on the corner at 272 West End Avenue and 91st Street that has been fixed up and again harks back to the time this was an exclusive neighborhood (more so than then now) and lined with private homes. This beautiful, designed home was built in 1920 (City Realty).
This whole area between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive from 66th Street straight up the west side of the island is lined with interesting apartment buildings. Each one is more unique than the other. It is a real change in these two blocks both in the architecture of the buildings and the feel of the neighborhood. It seems quieter and more reserved and the people walking along the streets seem more serious than their neighbors one block away. I just got that impression on the people living there by walking around at all hours of the day.
Dinner that night was at Cheesy Pizza at 2640 Broadway on the corner of 100th Street (See the review on TripAdvisor & my blog DiningonaShoeStringinNYC@Wordpress.com). The pizza is excellent made wonderful by their delicious tomato sauce. I get so disappointed by many of these pizzerias in these neighborhoods that I pass. They look so good and end up having tasteless food that makes it a disappointing meal.
Not at Cheesy Pizza. The pizza is full of flavor and loaded with their delicious sauce and loads of cheese. They have some excellent deals with eight specials available all day long for $5.00, which is a steal in this economy. I had the personal pizza with a Coke, and you got four nice slices of pizza that is freshly made for you. I was not only impressed with the quality but with the friendly service as the guys behind the counter seemed happy to see me. I guess it’s the cop thing again. This place warrants a few more visits.
The Cheese Pizza here is wonderful.
Before I headed downtown, I made a special trip to Silver Moon Bakery at 2740 Broadway and 105th Street for dessert (See review on TripAdvisor & my blog DiningonaShoeStringinNYC@Wordpress.com). The pastries here are excellent and rival their counterparts in other parts of the island. The nice part is they are very reasonable. Nothing is over $5.00. The quality is excellent, and the staff is not snotty like some of the bakeries on the East Side where they want to charge you $20.00 for a cake that costs about $3.00 in materials. I know rents are high but come on.
Silver Moon Bakery at 2740 Broadway (Closed March 2025-reopened June 2026 at 2664 Broadway under new owner)
The Silver Moon Buttercup Bakery at 2664 Broadway (opened in 2026)
Silver Moon Bakery is the home of the Crumuffin, which I have talked about before. I got a little boring and got a Linzer Tart. It was excellent. The cookie itself was so buttery and tasted like it had just come out of the oven. The raspberry jelly was tart and sweet and the cookie broken apart in my mouth when I ate it. Like a piece of heaven.
The selection at Silver Moon Bakery is wonderful.
That is the one thing about Silver Moon Bakery unlike their uptown competition. The product has not been sitting out all day long. The items are obviously bake in small batches throughout the day. Make the trip on the Number One Subway to 103rd Street to visit the bakery. It’s worth the travel time.
The Crumuffin at Silver Moon Bakery is the most amazing pastry!
Overall, I covered a lot of the Upper West Side, revisited a few haunts that I wanted to see again and got to relax and explore Riverside Park. The Upper West Side has so much to offer, and I will see more when I walk the streets in the neighborhood.
Read my other Blogs on the Bloomingdale neighborhood:
Day Ninety-Three: Walking the Borders of the Upper Upper West Side:
mywalkinmanhattan 