New York Restaurants
Rigo's Bakery on 78th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues kept the spirit of the Austro-Hungarian alive. Well, maybe not the spirit, but rather the baking. A visit here helps explain all the substantial looking royalty and bourgeoisie in the history books. They ate pastries like the ones here.
They sold little cups of sweet, gooey pie crust filled with mocha or chocolate cream. They had little chocolate and mocha petite fours. They had the usual linzer cookies and sacher tortes, and they had the most delicious pastry in the world, the Orlean. These were little layered cakes of rich, nutty short bread with raspberry jam between the layers and a melting raspberry fondant icing. They exploded in ones mouth.
Unfortunately, they closed rather suddenly a few years back, with little explanation and the art of this sort of baking is gone. The secret of the Orlean is lost forever, or so it seems. Sic transit gloria pastry.
Our new favorite bakery is now the Magnolia Bakery,
which is quite different.