Earlier this yr, Rick Easton, the proprietor of the Jersey Metropolis bakery Bread and Salt, co-authored (together with his spouse, the meals author Melissa McCart) a guide referred to as “Bread and Eat It.” Although it consists of recipes for sourdough and pizza bianca, it’s largely about what you are able to do with the professionally baked stuff: make toast and sandwiches when it’s contemporary, croutons and bread crumbs after it’s gone stale. “Personally, I believe individuals who bake bread at house are nuts,” Easton writes. “It’s time-consuming. It’s inefficient. House ovens aren’t designed to bake bread. . . . Plus, why make your personal when you should purchase one thing nice out of your native bakery, as individuals have for hundreds of years?”
Easton’s level could be learn as self-interested, certain, however I are inclined to agree with him, particularly given the continued rise of fantastic bakeries in New York. His concept rings more true nonetheless when utilized to what the French name viennoiserie: yeasted, enriched baked items, resembling brioche, cinnamon buns, and croissants, the final of which additionally requires the extremely labor-intensive strategy of lamination—fastidiously layering sheets of dough with sheets of butter, to create tender flakiness.
A rhubarb-custard Danish and a scallion-sesame bun from Radio Bakery.
You would possibly say that ALF, a bakery that opened in April, in Chelsea Market (75 Ninth Ave.), focuses on lamination. Amadou Ly, who labored beforehand at Arcade Bakery, laminates not solely all of the anticipated viennoiserie—his Danishes are particularly fantastic, together with a latest iteration topped with satiny panna cotta, completely poached rhubarb, and basil—but in addition baguettes, encasing lengthy, shapely loaves in sleeves of croissant dough. A laminated baguette doesn’t show, in my expertise, a great accompaniment to a roast rooster, which is maybe my favourite technique to eat a baguette: the feel is incorrect, not crusty and craggy sufficient. However it does stage up the basic state of affairs of baguette as morning-coffee companion, unfold thickly with butter and jam, melding the richness of a croissant with the chewiness of bread.
Ly’s laminated brioche, in the meantime, makes for an exquisite rooster sandwich, an entire, small rectangular loaf break up and full of skinny slices of chilly meat plus silky roasted pink peppers, Coquillo black olives, arugula, pickled onion, and capers, overflowing from crackly, snaking twists of pastry. His glorious Tunisian Tuna sandwich (a.ok.a., in Tunisia, a fricassée; Easton features a recipe in his guide) is open-faced, on a thick slice of tangy sourdough, the fish wearing a brightly peppery harissa mayo and topped with heirloom tomato, cucumber, capers, hard-boiled egg, and Coquillos.
Librae Bakery’s rose-pistachio croissant.
Ly additionally makes a basic ham-and-Gruyère on his conventional, non-laminated baguette. Each bread and sandwich are nice, however I used to be much more impressed by the ham sandwich at Radio (135 India St., Brooklyn), one other new bakery, in Greenpoint. Radio, from the group behind Rolo’s, in Ridgewood, Queens, skews extra Italian than French: as a substitute of baguette, there’s a phenomenal stirato, a variant of ciabatta, longer and thinner (extra like its French counterpart), and made right here with a super-hydrated dough, which provides it a squishy, stretchy crumb. The ham is paired with a potent rosemary compound butter; for one more sandwich, beautiful and light-weight, the stirato is layered with roasted cauliflower or squash, inexperienced tahini, peperoncini, and a beneficiant quantity of contemporary dill.
There may be loads of viennoiserie right here, too, together with a savory coiled croissant streaked via with ’nduja, the spicy, spreadable pork sausage; a triple-chocolate croissant; and a supremely crisp twice-baked pistachio croissant. It says loads about New York’s bakeries that the latter, although topnotch, shouldn’t be my favourite pistachio croissant within the metropolis: that designation goes to the one at Librae (35 Cooper Sq.), within the East Village, the place the viennoiserie has a Center Japanese bent. Librae’s croissant incorporates rose water in its pistachio filling, and dried rose petals are sprinkled atop a thick stripe of chopped pistachio that arches alongside the highest. I’d by no means in one million years try and make it myself. (Viennoiserie and sandwiches vary from $4 to $18.) ♦