Bouchon Bakery (New York)

According to The S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants for 2009, the best restaurant in the Americas is Per Se in the Time Warner Centre in New York, run by Thomas Keller originally of The French Laundrey in California. The restaurant offers a 9 course tasting menu for $275 (there are also some additional courses including foie gras for $30 and Australian truffles for $75) and it is notoriously difficult to get a reservation. Needless to say, we didn't go. We did have a look though - very subtle.


Thomas Keller also owns the Bouchon Bakery on the third floor of the Time Warner centre (Per Se is on the fourth), where you can sit down to sandwiches and salads for around $20. We didn't go there either. We did, however, have coffee and cake from the 'takeaway' outlet of the bakery, which was a comparative bargain at only $10 and means in a remote and distant manner, I have partaken of the food of the best chef in America.

There are a few small tables around the bakery and some with an exceptional view out the full glass front of The Time Warner Centre across Columbus Circle and up West 59th Street. With some careful loitering, we managed to snag one of these tables.

The choice of cakes was impressive - beautiful macarons, croissants, pain aux raisin, tarts, muffins. It was fortunate the queue took a while, as I took a while to decide. In the end, I opted for a sticky bun and a fig and hazelnut croissant. The croissant was lovely - full of sticky fig paste in the middle, wrapped in light pastry but with a heavy hazelnut and almost streusel topping. The sticky bun, however, was glorious. It looked pretty ridiculous and over-the-top, but was somehow not too sweet, despite the cinnamon swirl, the caramel sauce and the huge number of pecans on top. Delicious! The super-strong coffee was the perfect accompaniment to some excellent sweets and one of the best views in New York.

Bouchon Bakery
Third Floor
Time Warner Centre
Ten Columbus Circle
New York, NY 10019