Founder: Christina Tosi
Christina began her career by going to culinary school and working in fine-dining restaurants - putting herself on a path to become the in-house pastry chef. After a while, she realized that she didn't relate to fancy deserts. Although she loved the craft of them, they just weren't her. She decided to run operations at Momofuku for David Chang, who was making really good approachable food for the people. After a long day at work, Christina would go home and bake goods to bring in the next morning. One day a tenant next to one of the restaurants left and David helped Christina get the space to start her first bakery. The morning of opening day, there was a line around the corner.
Milk Bar is a sweet shop selling cakes, cake truffles, cookies, and pies both in-store and online. Its products are inspired by simple ingredients, but it presents them in new and unfamiliar ways. Christina doesn't want to compete with Grandma's cookie, she wants to reimagine it. She likes to thoughtfully use grocery store staples (such as cornflakes) to bring the consumer back to their childhood and give them a moment of joy.
"Failure gets a bad rap, but I’d like to change that. Failure is necessary. Let it in. Chew it up, and use it as fuel for your soul. It’s your power bar for the day. I use the word 'failure' not to be a harsh critic but to categorize the pursuit of taking some risks, taking some missteps, then digesting them and understanding what you want to do with them. It’s that strength of the human spirit, the strength of what’s deep down in you, that’s really going to get you anywhere and everywhere." - Christina
Sources: Time, Entrepreneur, inc.com, Milk Bar website