Inside Kellogg’s NYC, the fancy cereal café in Manhattan
Eating breakfast cereal as a kid was simple: you poured the Rice Krispies, then the milk and then you sprinkled in the green tea powder with your little eight-year-old fingers.
If you didn't, there's a new cafe in Manhattan that does do that.
Called "Kellogg's NYC," it's a product of the breakfast food giant and chefs/restaurateurs from fine dining backgrounds. The result is breakfast cereals prepared with all manner of fancy ingredients.
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All of the cereal dishes (or bowls, more accurately) were created by Christina Tosi, the owner and head chef of Momofuku Milk Bar. Tosi was brought onboard for her experience with mixing in cereal as pastry ingredients (cornflakes are a key part of Milk Bar's trademark cereal milk).
"[At Milk Bar] I think of cereal as an ingredient," Tosi said. "Here, it's the canvas and the star." And the recipes are all about spicing up Kellogg's cereal, from Corn Pops with blueberry jam, to Rice Krispies with green tea powder and strawberries, to Mini-Wheats with raspberries and ground coffee. And she doesn't forget milk.
What's even odder is how you actually get your food. You order at the counter and receive a buzzer in the typical fashion, but once your cereal has been prepared, your buzzer will direct you to a numbered cabinet. You open your cubby, and your cereal is magically there, along with some sort of prize.
Usually that prize will be a bouncy ball or mood ring, just like what you'd get at the bottom of a cereal box. But there are rare instances of receiving concert tickets or even Hamilton tickets.
"You don't often eat cereal out of the home," said Anthony Rudolf, the owner of the Journee center for restaurant professionals who co-designed Kellogg's NYC. "We wanted to capture that comfort and home feel."
That's why the cereal-dispensing cabinets look like small pantries and the whole space is reminiscent of a kitchen.
Rudolf also wanted the restaurant to appeal to both tourists and New Yorkers, which is why it's nestled off the northern edge of Times Square on 48th Street and Broadway. This makes it accessible to both Times Square tourists and New Yorkers who avoid Times Square like the plague. Bear in mind it's easy to miss, since that home kitchen aesthetic eshews the use of bright neon signs.
At $7.50 for a regular size bowl, the price is heftier than one might expect for cereal. But each dish can have ice cream sub in for milk, which makes for a good cereal sundae.
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Jonathan Keshishoglou (he often shortens that last part to just "Kesh") was an editorial intern on the Mashable Watercooler team. Watch him ramble coherently on Twitter: @keshception
