By Jake Rallo
There is nothing quite like a pastry and a shot of fresh espresso to start the day – a ritual commonly associated with Europe, and one often lost in America. My favorite: a well-made croissant, golden and delicate, almost airy.
The first pressure of your fingers produces a soft crackle, not loud but unmistakable as the outer shell fractures. It doesn’t crumble so much as shatter, sending a few fragile flakes falling down. Inside, an intricate honeycomb of thin, buttery layers, tender and slightly elastic. Steam escapes if it’s still warm, carrying that rich, toasty aroma of baked butter and dough.
As you pull the halves apart, there’s a subtle resistance, like the layers don’t quite want to separate. They stretch just a bit before exposing a soft, almost custardy interior. The contrast is the whole magic. Crisp giving way to plush; flaky edges melting into something pillowy.
A poorly made croissant leaves you wanting more, its promise unfulfilled, but a perfect one is irresistible in a way that’s hard to overstate. Traveling through Europe, there’s something almost timeless about enjoying a croissant – the ritual of it, the simplicity. Finding that same experience in Monmouth County is less common, but when you do come across it, it feels like a small victory.
Setting out to find what I believe to be the best croissant in Monmouth County was not easy – and it required some proper due diligence on my part. How could I judge what a good croissant was if I had never made one myself? Before tasting anyone else’s, I was determined to make them in my own kitchen.
Simply put, a croissant isn’t that hard to make – it just demands the highest level of patience. The dough itself is a straightforward mixture of flour, butter, milk, sugar, salt and yeast, combined at the right proportions to create your base. Of course, copious amounts of high-quality butter are central to any croissant recipe, and that ingredient alone is typically what gives home bakers fear.
If there is one thing I took away from the experience, it’s that patience isn’t just helpful, it’s everything. Between the resting periods, the proofing, and the repeated process of folding butter into the dough, this is not a pastry you can rush.
So what makes it so difficult? First and foremost, temperature control. You don’t want your butter to melt. Butter that’s too warm will spread indiscriminately as you build your layers, and you’ll lose that beautiful honeycomb interior when you finally break into the finished product. But the opposite is just as problematic. Butter that’s too cold won’t spread evenly within each layer, leaving you with a pastry that’s uneven and inconsistent throughout.
The second challenge is creating those layers with nothing more than a rolling pin and a ruler. Most bakeries have the advantage of a laminator, a piece of equipment that takes much of the manual effort out of the lamination process. At home, rolling out each fold by hand is genuinely taxing work and, for what it’s worth, an excellent forearm workout.
With all of that said, once you master the pastry, the result is deeply rewarding. Pulling a croissant from the oven with a gleaming, golden exterior is your first sign that things went right. Breaking it open is when I hold my breath – exposing the interior and hoping to reveal that beautiful honeycomb of air and paper-thin layers that marks the end of a long, careful process.
If you are inclined to try your hand at home, I’d recommend Claire Saffitz’s recipe on New York Times Cooking or the recipe from Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery cookbook – two reliable guides that will walk you through the process with care. My optimism would like to believe that every one of you will roll up your sleeves and attempt this pastry by the time you finish reading. In reality, I know better.
So when I’m not making croissants at home – which, honestly, is most of the time – where do I go to get my fix? One place in Monmouth County stands out: Hey Peach in Bradley Beach.
My not-so-hidden gem is a true family affair that opened in January 2025. Hey Peach boasts a beautiful variety of items, from cookies and laminated pastries to tarts, pies, biscuits, scones, macarons, beautiful breads and more. But for me, their laminated pastries are the standout.
Hey Peach is the vision of Erin Kilker, an artist and remarkably talented baker from Ocean Grove. Her philosophy is simple: focus on the classics and offer genuine mom-and-pop hospitality.
While baking had always been a passion, Erin doubled down on her craft when she enrolled in the pastry program at Brookdale Community College’s Culinary Education Center in Asbury Park. That combination of lifelong passion, formal training and a commitment to constant learning comes through clearly in everything she makes.
Visiting the store, that vision is brought to life from the moment you arrive. I visited on an early Sunday morning in May, arriving at 6:30 a.m. to hopefully be the first in line when the door opened at 7 a.m. The storefront, designed by Erin and built by her mother’s talented hands, is immediately charming. In the window sit drool-worthy pastries, alongside an Italian La Marzocco espresso machine, because fostering a counter coffee culture was just as important to Erin as the baking itself. Walking inside, the shop is small but packs a punch. The counter, espresso bar, bread shelf and more were all built by Erin’s mom – and you can tell. The shop is one of a kind and feels just right.
I felt as though I’d been there before, welcomed with the kind of sincere hospitality that’s hard to manufacture. Behind the counter, Erin’s mom runs the register while her three cousins and sister-in-law wrap and pack your pastries, and just off to the back is where the magic happens. Mom takes your order and answers any questions you may have, before you take a quick few steps to your right to wait for your box of goods and coffee.
While I have yet to try everything Hey Peach offers, their standout for me is the glazed croissant – everything you expect from the classic pastry and then some. I asked Erin if she had a favorite item behind the counter, and she is equally a fan of her glazed croissant, which is a product of her inability to make donuts in the space due to equipment constraints. “I always wanted to make donuts, but this is the next best thing, maybe even better,” she said.
Offering quality pastries at this level comes with its challenges. Erin and her team get to work at midnight every day to begin shaping and proofing croissants, a process that alone takes about six hours. In their so-called downtime, scones are being cut, cookies baked, macarons assembled, and everything else in between, so that the doors can open right at 7 a.m. with a full case of freshly baked goods. At Hey Peach, nothing hits the shelf that isn’t fresh. At the end of each day, anything left unsold is donated to the Bradley Beach Pantry, ensuring a clean slate and a fresh start every morning.
What started as a desire to pursue passion has become something much greater for Erin and her team. Bakeries have a way of creating small micro-communities, drawing in people who fall in love with a place and keep coming back. They give us the literal opportunity to break bread with the people we love, and manage to put a smile on our faces with each visit. They are a small oasis in a big world, a place to exhale for the few moments you’re inside.
On my first visit to Hey Peach, I had the chance to stand in line next to a regular. Erin mentioned he comes every single day. He knew each pastry in the case by heart and had an easy smile as we waited our turn at the register. Despite it being my first visit, I already knew what I wanted by the time I reached the counter, thanks to him. That sense of community at Hey Peach runs deep, and it adds just one more reason why the place is so special.
Sometimes the best things in life find you.
On my bucket list this summer is a sunrise ride to Hey Peach, an espresso, and a glazed croissant – it should be on yours, too.
Jake Rallo, part of the Rallo family dining legacy,
is managing partner of River Pointe Inn in Rumson.
The article originally appeared in the May 21 – 27, 2026 print edition of The Two River Times.
