Three weeks ago, I traveled to New York to visit a close friend. I knew that besides catching up with him, I would want to taste some desserts from establishments around the city.
I was there for only three full days and carried my 8 month-old-old baby on me during the trip so I couldn’t eat sweets all the time. I feel like I did accomplish a lot by going to some well recognized “institutions” and tasting some great stuff.
After this trip I felt like this would be my desirable vocation – going around the world, tasting pastries and reporting about them. Not food, no drinks, just desserts.
Grom
My tour started at
Grom This amazing gelato place in Columbus Circle served some of the gelato places I ever tasted in the U.S. With 31 shops in Italy (if you can stand out amongst competitors in Italy it means your product is superb), plus locations in Tokyo, Paris, New York and Malibu. I tried the pistachio gelato and it was AMAZING! So smooth and creamy.
Bouchon
Next was
Bouchon at Columbus Circle- the best patisserie experience ever in the U.S.! What a variety, design, taste!!
I tried a few macarons: cranberry pomegrante, pumpkin and pistacchio. The macarons were big and perfect! Very soft and moist with the perfect amound of filling. The linzer cookies were very good too and the brioche was superb! The prices are high but again- worth every $. They have also a nice sitting area where they also offer food.
Levain
Next was Levain. A bakery that got her prestige from their ”most divine chocolate chip cookies in Manhattan” as the New York Times says. They have 4 varieties and I bought the walnut chocolate chip cookie for $4 and it was worth all the dough! The cookies had just came out of the oven. The texture was so crumbly, soft but crunchy, buttery that melted in my mouth. Pure happiness! Apperantly their cookies inspired bakers to search for a similar recipe and
their website provided some link for Levain wanna-be
cookies. I’m sure their recipes are locked in a safe!
Magnolia
How can I not go to
Magnolia? So much was said and written about this bakery. I tried the banana bread
pudding cupcake and it was delicious. I ended up ordering the red velvet cupcake-one of their staples.
Yes it was very good but you know that cupcakes never give me excitement.
I kind of like the way they frost their cupcakes:
Want to frost like that? check this
video
Jaques Torres
I’m a big fan of
teuscher chocolates. It’s really hard to make me excited over a chocolate candy if it’s not in the same league. Skeptical, but curious, we went to
Jaques Torres I was really surprised. These are really wonderful chocolate candies. I loved everything we tasted including the chocolate genache and the earl grey flavors but I especially loved the port.
Cafe Lalo
Cafe Lalo is a great place that feels like Europe from the desgin, to the menu. It feels like like you are sitting in Paris of the 30′s. There’s a huge window case with a lot of impressive cakes with different flavors and frostings (They offer 100 cakes!) We tried classic chocolate cake which was very rich and dense (on the good side). We also ate an amazing breakfast, “the New York Breakfast,” carved nova,
Scotch salmon, whipped cream cheese, everything bagel and fresh vegetables.It was delicious!
For closure, I tasted few things I didn’t love, but I didn’t want to write about them Overall, it was a great experience of tasting sweets in NYC and I know there are a lot more places to check next time.
