03 Sep The Newest Place for a Great Chocolate Croissant Is on the Williamsburg Waterfront – Renata Ameni’s Birdee lands in Brooklyn
n 1856, cousins Frederick and William Havemeyer opened the Domino Sugar Refinery between Kent Avenue and the East River in Williamsburg. At the peak of their production, they refined four-million pounds of sugar daily — enough for 720-million Nestlé Toll House chocolate chip cookies. The property has gone through a few lives. Most recently, it became the home of The Refinery at Domino, a luxury office building with an eye-catching vaulted glass roof.
Today, sugar is again part of its identity with the debut of Birdee (300 Kent Avenue), a sprawling bakery and all-day cafe from Renata Ameni and the rapidly expanding Kent Hospitality Group. The sun-filled space designed by Modellus Novus — behind Saga, Overstory, Tatiana, and Cote — is clean and modern. Yet several of the creations at Birdee lean into nostalgic flavors. There are pepperoni pizza croissants, garlic-knot pretzels, strawberry cheesecake danishes, and an ice cream bar that will turn out composed sundaes starting later this spring.
Ameni’s creations are meticulously executed, but not overly complicated or boundary-pushing — and that’s by design. After working in three Michelin-star restaurants including Eleven Madison Park and Manresa for years, Ameni says she tired of having to “challenge” her guests’ palates. “Those are not the things that I like to eat — my palate for desserts [is] very basic” she explains. With sticky toffee pudding at Crown Shy and oversized goldfish crackers at Time & Tide, she honed a style of clever takes on classics during her tenure as executive pastry chef for KHG, a title she recently relinquished so she could focus on Birdee.
Even the elegant satsuma ice cream capped with burnished marshmallows from Crown Shy, which will be available at Birdee, is reminiscent of a Creamsicle, which Ameni hopes evokes childhood memories for her guests. There are nods to her childhood in Brazil on the menu, too, including little cheesy buns called pão de queijo and brigadeiros, gooey chocolate truffles encrusted with sprinkles, which she spent months on, trying to balance the classic flavors with more cheffy ingredients.
The triptych pastry cases also house desserts that reference her late mother’s Lebanese heritage like a za’atar and labneh danish. Her father’s Italian roots are represented with Italian butter cookies topped with a little chocolate coin stamped with the bakery’s logo — a “birdee,” a nickname her mother gave her (passarinho in Portuguese).
The idea to open her project started years ago with the late Jamal James Kent, who died of a heart attack in June of last year. He joked it should be “Renata’s Helados” (Ameni’s first name is pronounced Henata in Portuguese). But, she worried about it being too seasonal. A bakery felt more fitting, but it sat on a back burner for several years.
In early 2024, Ameni jokes that she nudged Kent, saying, “Chef, hello, where’s my bakery?” Around the same time the team at The Refinery at Domino reached out about opening a place that would offer lunch and grab-and-go options as an amenity for the building.
“He was so excited that it was on Kent Street,” Ameni recalls. They expanded the idea from solely a bakery to a cafe with sandwiches like an Italian dip with giardiniera on a pretzel bun and salads like farro with stracciatella and peas from the group’s culinary director Justin Osorio.
Opening without Kent has been bittersweet for Ameni. “James was always my little security blanket,” she says. He wanted a smoker at Birdee — why? She wasn’t quite sure. But one sits prominently in the kitchen and Ameni is planning to add a dedication plaque to it. At a preview event earlier this week, Kent’s photo was placed prominently atop the pastry case, above a large format version of Ameni’s pull-apart bread that he loved.
“This was his last project,” she explains. “It’s such an honor for me to try to keep his legacy alive.”
Birdee is open daily 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The ice cream bar will debut later in the season.
Original article can be found here.