Midtown Lunch

SCRATCHbread has quite a following in Brooklyn, but there are few places that you can get their goodies in Manhattan. Fortunately midtown has become one of them. Now in addition to good sandwiches, cold brew ice coffee, and awesome chocolate chip cookies, you can also get SCRATCHbread scones at Culture Espresso Bar (on 38th btw. 5+6th).

Right now they carry three varieties of scones: citrus, rosemary, olive oil & grey salt, bitter chocolate & dried currant, and Danish blue, toasted oat & date. On a recent trip I picked up one of the Danish blue scones. For those who are used to sweet scones of the Starbucks variety, the scones from SCRATCHbread are more buttery and savory. The owner and baker, Matthew Tilden says: “I use really, really good butter, fold everything by hand with classic techniques, and you get a flaky, buttery, almost dry creamy scone that explodes when you get the garnish of bitter chocolate and tangy currant, or rosemary, citrus, olive oil and coarse grey salt.”

The Danish Blue scone had a touch of orange oil. As promised it was intensely buttery, and a bit drier than I’m used to. An unconventional combo, but the sweetness of the orange oil/date/oats balances nicely with the sharpness of the blue cheese. If you like salty/sweet treats this is worth giving a shot. Next time I’m going for the currant and chocolate.

Culture Espresso Bar, 72 West 38th Street (btw. 5+6th) 212-302-0200