PrintBaguettes Are Us: What's Your Favorite
If you haven't already checked out the piece on the world's foremost baguettologist in New York Magazine, you must. This is all you need to know about Steven L. Kaplan: When he speaks of baguettes he says things like "a global sense of the moment of penetration" in describing mouthfeel; or that baguettes have "had intercourse" when they're packed too tightly in the oven; or, finally, "It's as if the female crumb has completely reduced the male crust to helpless impotence" when he describes a soggy bread.
The problem with the story is that we never learn the exact criteria he uses in judging baguettes. We learn he has a 21-point grading stystem, but we never find out how he applies it.
But the story did start me thinking about baguettes in New York and around the country, and in the last three days I have bought ten baguettes to sample. What have I learned? One is that a baguette from the same bakery can vary greatly from day to day. The baguette from Pain D'Avignon was great one day, and pretty awful the next. This makes sense in a certain way. Bread baking is affected by outside temperature and humidity and changes in both from day to day. It's like pizza. Also, mass-baking baguettes is the ultimate challenge for any bread baker. Any one of six bakers in New York can make ten great baguettes a day. The real question is whether they can make thousands of very good baguettes in a day. Also, a baguette is an extremely perishable food item. It varies in taste and texture according to how many hours it's been out of the oven. A baguette that's one hour old tastes very different from a six hour-old baguette.
This is a long-winded way of asking all of you to vote for your favorite baguette, either in New York or out.
Here are the candidates I know about:
New York:
Eli's
Pain d'Avignon
Sullivan Street Bakery
Balthazar
Tomcat
Le Pain Quotidien
Outside New York:
La Brea Bakery: (originally LA, now nationwide)
Acme Bread: Bay Area
Bread Line (D.C.)
So cast your vote and tell me what you like about your favorite baguette. We're talking about regular baguettes here, not sourdough.
Vote early and often.
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10 Comments:
Falai Panneteria on Clinton St. hands down (although it's a wee bit odd to say an Italian man makes the best baguette in NYC, but then again, if I believe what I've heard, then a baguette is actually an Austrian invention imported into France).
But I digress....
The reason I love Falai's wonderful loaves is the end bits. His loaves have thin, twisty ends that get slightly burnt and caramelized by the woodburning oven.
The crust is thick and brittle, in a good way, and the insides are oozy, smooth and delightfully airy, bubbly and yeasty. That's on a good day at least.
On a bad day (usually days when the air is very humid or it is raining or threatening to do so) they resemble a normal baguette.
Nothing wrong with it, but once you've tasted perfection, it's hard to accept anything less.
Ann at 10:48AM on 10/26/06
GREAT topic & good follow-up to kaplan's ny mag article. i wrote to him asking pretty much the same question(s) as u have raised, with pretty much a similar answer re: time of day, the moon's position, etc, etc... he skirts the issue of naming names, leaving the mag's examples to suffice.
it's UNDERSTOOD that conditions vary day-to-day, hr-to-hr, etc, etc; we/I don't need a so-called "expert" to tell us/me that, but such experts ego require them to speak down to the populace to make sure everyone bows down to their know-it-all knowledge. what we, the populace want, is not the minute details of how to make a great-tasting baguette, but WHO makes consistently great baguettes, & WHERE to find them!!! that's it, in a nutshell!!!!
i have found tom cat's to be very good, but kaplan never mentions; balthazar @ fairway, also good (?), but comes out poorly on most expert's tests. btw, tom cat makes a full-size & a 1/2 baguette, which is a perfect "daily" size for those of us trying hard to not eat so much bread!
as u know ED, Fairway now carries their own private label baked sev times/day, so they say?, pretty generic + they also carry balthazar's; Citarella also carries their own private label + tom cat, which, for some odd reason citarella re-bags into their own packaging??? note: they only carry the full-size vs. Gourmet Garage, on bwy @96th, which conveniently carries both sizes; Zabar's carries amy's which THEY claim (??) is delivered 2x/da (& which u left out of your list) + eli's (duh!!) + their OWN pvt label, as the others. i imagine, bread's mark-UP is just too attractive not to make your own(??)
which, in the neighborhood, is the best?? personally, i don't know, requires a "benchmark" BEFORE determining which is "THE Best" ... however, what is the "benchmark? a baguette from Paris?? Poilane's miche?
will be very curious what others "chime-in" with.
now, "IF" we could only get some decent responses from your somewhat lackadaisical readership as to hard advice (vs. generalities, as well as more interested in "hearing" THEMSELVES) re: where to find a good coq au vin!!!!???? :)
apologize for being so harsh, but tired of the creeping BS beginning to permeate this blog, instead of helpfulness/usefulness ............ could go to egullet or chowhound if needed more crap, than substance.
** p.s. same old, same old observation - no name appears by post , only the "happy-faced" icon" - just where IS your webmaster hiding :))))
baruch at 10:53AM on 10/26/06
La Brea use have good bread but now it is half baked and finished at the point of sale - taste like any other bread. Acme is the best of the three.
nwdrs at 12:39PM on 10/26/06
Boudin's sourdough baguette on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco must get mentioned with or without dungeness crab. And I'm a New Yorker.
guttergour at 1:55PM on 10/26/06
I have to agree that La Brea bakery's quality had gone downhill over the last decade or so. When i lived in L.A., I would go there often for fresh bread and it never disappointed.
Off-topic, but it's something I would like to see addressed: Why is all the sourdough bread I find on the East Coast not sour at all? I swear that in California it almost makes my lips pucker, but here i find it hard to distinguish from any other bread. Or is there a bakery in New York that makes great sourdough?
MegalodonM at 3:51PM on 10/26/06
I vote for Porto's Bakery, locations in Glendale and Burbank. It is Disneyland for bread and pastry lovers. Only not as expensive. Where else would you find a clerk who offers, on her own, to bring you a fresh baguette because the ones in the basket have been out too long?
vidadulce at 10:23AM on 10/27/06
I would like to vote AGAINST Balthazar Bakery's baguette. It is one of the worst I have ever had and I agree completely with N Y Magazine's comments. I have had the baguette from Le Pain Quotidien and it is very good.
linda at 12:59PM on 10/29/06
Sullivan Street Bakery!
Stelly at 7:48PM on 11/01/06
i agree with Linda. I just tried Balthazar's baguette and it was NOT good.
Highly disappointing, in fact.
vivalicious at 9:01PM on 01/01/08
I have found Balthazar's baguette to be maddeningly inconsistent: good some days, bad on others. I'm beginning to think there is a limit to how good a mass-produced baguette can be.
Ed Levine at 9:17AM on 01/02/08