New York Desserts
The Big Apple's Pie (and Pastry Too)
The Big Apple's Pie (and Pastry Too)
Washington is the capital, but New York is the world’s city, so you would expect it to have at least fifty great places to eat dessert. But where are they? Which bakery is worth a trip to the boroughs? Which patisserie is as good as Paris? Which soda fountain sundae is worth abandoning Atkins for?
Lifelong New Yorkers and long-time friends Andrea DiNoto and Paul Stiga have figured it out. Their new book, New York’s 50 Best Places to Enjoy Dessert directs you to the swankest souffles and the crispest cookies, all sorted by neighborhood, ethnicity, and type of dessert. They also offer some inside information–what the hottest pastry chefs are doing, the story of the New York cheesecake wars, and what’s really in an egg cream.
“We’ve always loved desserts,” says DiNoto. “Paul is the chocoholic and I tend to love fruit based desserts more, so it was a good yin-yang combination.” That they didn’t share a palate fits the book’s open-minded approach. After all notes Stiga, appealing desserts have a wide range, further tweaked by the idiosyncratic style of each pastry chef, which may appeal to your taste or not.
The book’s chosen best are arrayed alphabetically, and DiNoto and Stiga’s descriptions let you know exactly what you’ll be getting, whether it’s a kid friendly hangout or a hushed and elegant tearoom. The book also breaks down choices by neighborhood, and sidebars give insight into special places and treats, from the Union Square Greenmarket to Tres Leches cake. And so you’ll know exactly what to order, a glossary runs from apfelstrudel to zuppa inglese.
Stiga notes that the book and their approach was not all about food. “Andrea is the food expert, and guided by the book’s title–places to enjoy dessert–I focused on the experience.” He particularly recalls visiting The Hungarian Cafe that was like a funky student hangout, and had a real Eastern European feel. “It’s also the kind of traditional ethnic enclave that the city is losing as neighborhoods gentrify.”
But gentrification brings new flavors. As DiNoto says, “New York’s cultural choices are enormous and truly inspiring. We were delighted to be able to include everything from Viennese and French pastries to Italian dolci and Japanese sweets known as wagashi.”
But how to choose the best? How to compare gelato with an ice cream sundae or creme caramel with Indian kulfi? For both DiNoto and Stiga, the best seems to come from commitment. Whether it is chef Daniel Boulud’s unstinting pursuit of perfection in everything from short ribs to napery, the Poseidon Bakery’s insistence on making their own phyllo dough, or Once Upon a Tart’s quotidian pursuit of seasonal fillings and perfect crust.
DiNoto and Stiga put the book together in about three months, building a list from their own favorites, reviews of restaurant guides, and putting the word out among friends and associates. Stiga says asking about favorite desserts is a great way to revive a dying dinner party. “Everyone comes alive and is ready to share information, and wants to hear about what we’ve found.”
DiNoto and Stiga point out, by the way, that dessert is an easily accessible way to experience restaurants that might otherwise be too crowded or expensive at other meals. You can wait a month for a reservation at Gramercy Tavern, but wander in on a weekday afternoon and the place is yours.
With a map one can easily build an indulgent itinerary. I decided to build my trek around a shopping trip at Conran’s, so I looked for options in Midtown and on the Upper East Side. I could have just as easily arranged a downtown jaunt to Chelsea’s Fat Witch Bakery and the Bruno Bakery in Greenwich Village and on to Little Italy and Chinatown for gelato and bubble tea. Or on the Upper West Side with dessert at Daniel after the Museum of Natural History. I could even have ventured to MOMA Queens and on to Brooklyn for Jacques Torres chocolates and Sicilian sweets at Villabate Pasticceria. Wherever you go in New York, there’s a sweet spot.
My first stop was the Columbus Bakery, a neighborhood spot that DiNoto and Stiga describe as “homey.” On Saturday morning it was busy with breakfasters enjoying orders of waffles or eggs, and the kind of treats you’d bake if you thought about it: sour cream coffee cake, giant chocolate chip cookies, pecan sticky buns, or American kitchen ingenuity at its best: Rice Krispy treats made with Fruit Loops.
My next stop was French genius. Fauchon is a pinnacle of confectionery perfection, from its Park Avenue location to the pink and gold beribboned boxes that coddle the humblest butter cookie. Fauchon is most noted for its teas and its jewel-box tea room is the ideal spot for a white-gloved luncheon. But as DiNoto and Stiga write, “on a first visit, it’s more fun to goggle at the many pastries in the shop’s cases,” which is just what I did, finally settling on a pale green pistachio macaroon of the sort that Vogue editors are always raving about.
With macaroon, marzipan, and butter cookies safely stowed, I was off to two all-American sweet shops. Serendipity 3 has been “a chocolate checkpoint since 1954,” and its eclectic design of pseudo-Tiffany lamps and found objects reflects a free-wheeling attitude. Since the restaurant’s inception, celebrities from Andy Warhol to Demi Moore have stopped in for foot-long hot dogs, piled-high cheeseburgers, and the restaurant’s famous Frozen Hot Chocolate. If it’s noon on a Saturday you won’t be able to get near the place. In fact, a sign in the shop next door asks, “Serendipity customers, please curb your children.”
Instead, you can recreate the experience at home, with Sweet Serendipity, Delightful Desserts & Devilish Dish, a cookbook celebrating the restaurant’s 50 years of homey and over the top desserts. Amid recipes for Bourbon Balls, Mississippi Mud Cake, and Cherry Pan Dowdy are recollections of the dessert obsessions of the rich and famous, from Jackie Kennedy trying to get secret recipes for White House dinners to Andy Warhol selling his drawings in the gift shop and practically living on Lemon Ice Pie.
Dylan’s Candy Bar is steps away on the same block and you can immerse yourself there at any time and it will always be bright, boisterous, and irresistible. This themed environment, from Julie Andrews singing “You’re Scrumptious” on the store’s sound system to a back-lit staircase embedded with bright bits of candy, offers something sweet for everyone. You can stock up on bulk jelly beans or hunt up vintage candy like Razzles and Necco wafers. If you can’t take anymore sugar, there are T-shirts, baseball caps, and charm bracelets with candy logos and colors. And don’t let anyone tell you that M&Ms come in just five colors. At Dylan’s you can choose among 21 colors, from minimalist tones of black, white and gray to spring pastels of blue and green.
The bright colors, bold typography, and crisp shapes on display at Dylan’s Candy Bar use design to create desire. The Conran Shop has been doing that for more that since 1973, transforming utilitarian objects into museum pieces. The elevation of the everyday into art provides the same aesthetic satisfaction as a perfect pale macaroon or a wall of jelly beans in pop-art colors. Originally founded in London, the New York branch opened in 1999, tucked into found urban space under the Queensboro Bridge.
Dramatic and eye-filling, it is a retail museum where everything can be touched, and even better, bought. Furniture, housewares, books, desk items, luggage, and more are assembled from around the world are chosen to meet the Conran “criteria of good design and quality at a reasonable price.” In fact, several items chosen for the original shop are still stocked, proving “the timelessness of good design.” Tucked in among clever card cases and ergonomic pens is a stack of DiNoto and Stiga’s book. Its tidy size, bright graphics and crisply laid out pages fit the cool Conran style in pursuit of the best.
Further uptown, is Le Pain Quotidien one of a chain of Belgian cafes that takes a farmhouse style, from its communal wood table to its organic foods. But don’t think organic doesn’t mean tasty. Belgian Sugar Waffles and fresh Berry Tarts are delicious, especially served with a footed-bowl of hot, milky coffee. This is hardly chain food, after all what chain offers a ricotta and fig tartine drizzled with honey?
Visiting the Payard Patisserie, is like entering a candy box. Bouquets of lamps give off a caramel light and petite ceramic tables glow like glazed pastilles. Sparkling pastry cases curve along either side of the shop, and are filled with little cakes, their sweet faces framed by frilled paper collars. And at tea time, the shop is busier than Grand Central Station.
It’s not hard to understand why. Payard has adapted classic French recipes to American ingredients. His signature chocolates (regular clients include British Air’s Concorde, the Carlyle Hotel, and Michael Jordan) are made off premises, but in the shop’s cramped kitchens, Payard and his chefs spin sugar, construct croquembouches, and marshal a parade of delicious mousses, cremes, cookies, tarts, and pastries. Chocolate creme brulee is a sophisticated, light chocolate pudding topping with a bittersweet crust of browned sugar, and a pastry called New York, New York is a Genoise biscuit filled with cream cheese mousse and raspberry puree. The city’s skyline is silkscreened in chocolate into the cake in such fine detail that you can see individual flames in the Statue of Liberty’s torch.
The shop’s recipes have been adapted for the home cook in Payard’s cookbook, Simply Sensational Desserts. While it won’t help you exactly recreate the shop’s pastries, they are simplified to give the home cook access to traditional and family recipes that are unique, charming, and delicious.
DiNoto and Stiga admit to gaining a few pounds, but not as many as they might have thought. “We learned very quickly not to eat the whole thing, especially if you are tasting several desserts in one sitting,” says DiNoto. As for my own day of desserts–who cares, it was a treat to experience New York, candy-coated.
©2006 Claudia Kousoulas
The Books
New York’s 50+ Best Places to Enjoy Dessert, Andrea DiNoto and Paul Stiga, Universe Publishing, 2003, paperback. $14.95Sweet
Serendipity, Delicious Desserts & Devilish Dish, Stephen Bruce, Universe Books, 2004, cloth, $19.95
Simply Sensational Desserts, Francois Payard, Broadway Books, 1999, cloth, $35.00
If You Go The Columbus Bakery, 957 1st Avenue, between 52nd and 53rdFauchon, 442 Park Avenue at 56th Street
Dylan’s Candy Bar, 1011 3rd Avenue at 60th StreetSerendipity 3, 225 East 60th Street, between 2nd and 3rd Avenues
The Conran Shop, 407 east 59th Street, at 1st Avenue
Le Pain Quotidien, 833 Lexington Avenue, between 63rd and 64th Streets
Payard Patisserie, 1032 Lexington Avenue, between 73rd and 74th Streets
Frozen Hot Chocolate From Sweet Serendipity Delicious Desserts & Devilish Dishmakes one giant Serendipity sized serving6 half ounce pieces of your favorite chocolate2 teaspoons store bought hot chocolate mix1 1/2 tablespoons sugar1 1/2 cups milk3 cups icewhipped creamchocolate shavingsChop the chocolate into into small pieces and place it in the top of a double boiler over simmering water, stirring occasionally until melted. Add the hot chocolate mix and sugar, stirring constantly until thoroughly blended. Remove from heat and slowly add 1/2 cup of the milk and stir until smooth. Cool to room temperature.In a blender, place the remaining cup of milk, the room temperature chocolate mixture, and the ice. Blend on high speed until smooth and the consistency of a frozen daiquiri. Pour into a giant goblet and top with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. enjoy with a spoon or a straw–or both!
New York’s 50+ Best Places to Enjoy Dessert, Andrea DiNoto and Paul Stiga, Universe Publishing, 2003, paperback. $14.95Sweet
Serendipity, Delicious Desserts & Devilish Dish, Stephen Bruce, Universe Books, 2004, cloth, $19.95
Simply Sensational Desserts, Francois Payard, Broadway Books, 1999, cloth, $35.00
If You Go The Columbus Bakery, 957 1st Avenue, between 52nd and 53rdFauchon, 442 Park Avenue at 56th Street
Dylan’s Candy Bar, 1011 3rd Avenue at 60th StreetSerendipity 3, 225 East 60th Street, between 2nd and 3rd Avenues
The Conran Shop, 407 east 59th Street, at 1st Avenue
Le Pain Quotidien, 833 Lexington Avenue, between 63rd and 64th Streets
Payard Patisserie, 1032 Lexington Avenue, between 73rd and 74th Streets
Frozen Hot Chocolate From Sweet Serendipity Delicious Desserts & Devilish Dishmakes one giant Serendipity sized serving6 half ounce pieces of your favorite chocolate2 teaspoons store bought hot chocolate mix1 1/2 tablespoons sugar1 1/2 cups milk3 cups icewhipped creamchocolate shavingsChop the chocolate into into small pieces and place it in the top of a double boiler over simmering water, stirring occasionally until melted. Add the hot chocolate mix and sugar, stirring constantly until thoroughly blended. Remove from heat and slowly add 1/2 cup of the milk and stir until smooth. Cool to room temperature.In a blender, place the remaining cup of milk, the room temperature chocolate mixture, and the ice. Blend on high speed until smooth and the consistency of a frozen daiquiri. Pour into a giant goblet and top with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. enjoy with a spoon or a straw–or both!