Dessert at Kellogg’s Diner Isn’t That Deep

A pastry kitchen turns cheffy, house made ingredients into easy, lovable desserts at this Brooklyn diner revival.

There’s a show called The Counter in its final weeks on Broadway right now. (Well, technically, it’s off-Broadway.) According to the synopsis, the play, which is set in a diner, is “a funny, surprising, and moving meditation on the everyday connections that can change our lives.” The cast is just three actors tasked with bringing to life the story of a waitress and her regular, but if you consider the unspoken contributions of the diner itself — its “everyday” quality — maybe it, too, could serve as a character on the stage.

I should mention that I haven’t actually seen The Counter, but I recognize the device of using a diner as shorthand for something else, like upright American values. In fact, the diner is possibly the most ideologically-coded restaurant format we have and, in the past, has been a stage for working class consumption and Civil Rights-era resistance. Roughly every four years, on the presidential campaign trail, the affordable, unpretentious diner is used as a signal of a candidate’s relatability.

Today, as the Times recently reported, diners are experiencing a revival in New York. Their appeal as spaces of simple comfort is as relevant as ever among chefs and customers alike. Kellogg’s Diner in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is one of the buzziest entrants to the trend, breathing new life, and a fresh chrome-trimmed sheen, into an icon of Metropolitan Avenue. Here, the prices are low and the portions are generous, but what sets Kellogg’s apart is chef Jackie Carnesi’s New York-ish, Tex-Mex spin on the menu. And, of course, pastry chef Amanda Perdomo’s desserts.

Kellogg’s Diner first opened in 1928. New ownership has revived the restaurant with a New York-ish, Tex-Mex spin that rivals Yellow Rose in Manhattan.

Kellogg’s is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, for now.¹ The goal is to eventually resume a 24-hour schedule. The current menu, while expansive, is nowhere near its original count of 200 dishes. Still, there is an eclectic mix of items like breakfast chilaquiles made with excellent tortilla chips and an unexpectedly great BLT, both of which I tried. Then, there are things like cornmeal masa pancakes, a cilantro Caesar, and a honey butter chicken biscuit, all of which I still need to try. It’s the kind of sporadic menu diners are known for — food for any mood.

The dessert portion of the menu, which I did eat through most of, is about as long as the breakfast offerings; an impressive effort for a genre of restaurants that perfected the art of breakfast for dinner. There is a pastry case in the middle of the dining room filled with Thiebaudian rows of pie and a whole four-layer chocolate cake. Like the savory dishes, dessert follows the Southern-inspired, Tex-Mex theme with a hefty dose of mom’s home cooking.

“Diner desserts, they're very nostalgic, so the assignment was to tap into that,” Perdomo told me over the phone. “In my head, I just knew the dessert needed to feel like someone's mom made it.”

All the vibes of a delicatessen, bakery, and luncheonette rolled into one fashionably retro pastry case.