New York has no shortage of small, homegrown bakeries, but in recent years the city has attracted a number of chains bearing foreign names: Maison Kayser from France, Le Pain Quotidien from Belgium, Breads Bakery from Israel, and others from Japan and Korea.
Now a fresh wave of overseas bakeries is on its way, from Australia, Italy and Scandinavia, most with a similar format — a retail counter, a seating area and a bakery in the rear — and some with plans for more expansion.
Ole & Steen will offer a number of items not often found in New York, like twisted pastries called social.CreditEllen Silverman for The New York Times
Rye is the grain of choice at Ole & Steen, a chain of more than 90 bakeries and cafes in Denmark and England, now poised to open Thursday near Union Square. Its specialties include several types of long-fermented rye-based breads, like the kind of earthy, bricklike dark loaf found at many Scandinavian bakeries, along with pastries Americans would call “Danish.”
The claim by Derek Hunt, the company’s culinary director, that bread like this doesn’t exist in New York doesn’t quite hold up: Claus Meyer has already whetted New Yorkers’ taste for traditional Nordic rye breads with the loaves and pastries he bakes and sells at his Great Northern Food Hall in Grand Central Terminal.
But Ole & Steen is trying to be different, producing a number of items not often found in New York: a rye bread made with carrots to soften the sturdy grain; long, twisted pastries called socials with cinnamon, marzipan, custard or chocolate, to cut into sections; jaunty marshmallow-filled puff pyramids; and Danish smorrebrod open-faced sandwiches.
The chain was started in Copenhagen in 1991, and it already has other New York locations lined up at 48th Street and Lexington Avenue and across 40th Street from Bryant Park, to open in coming months. A commissary in Maspeth, Queens, supplies some of the goods, but many of the breads and pastries are being baked on the premises in the Union Square flagship.
Fabrique, from Sweden, is set to open in February in a meatpacking-district storefront done in white subway tiles and glass. Charlotta Zetterstrom, who owns the company with her husband, the chef David Zetterstrom, said they started it to push back against industrialized baking. “We want to shift the negative reputation surrounding bread,” she said.
They have 19 bakeries in and around Stockholm and five in London. In New York, all the baking of the rustic rye, multigrain and sourdough breads (and classic pastries fragrant with cinnamon and cardamom) is being done in a stone oven on the premises. Notable are a rye baguette and a rye bread with cranberries.
Australian baking is big on sausage rolls and indulgences like the Lamington, made with sponge cake dipped in chocolate and coconut. But sourdough breads are the heart and soul of the craft for Paul Allam, who started Bourke Street Bakery in 2004 in Sydney with another baker and partner, David McGuinness; they now have 13 branches in Australia.
Mr. Allam starts by milling his own grain, which he’s doing in his new bakery and cafe, which will open in a few weeks just off Fifth Avenue in NoMad. He has moved, with his family, to New York.
His sourdough loaves, baked after lengthy proofing, include one with turmeric and another made with flax seed. In addition to the inevitable Lamington, for New York customers he’ll make a maple-bacon Danish pastry and peanut butter-and-jelly croissants. Pecan and pumpkin pies are another specialty. Bourke Street will also have a menu of savory items, including roasted eggplant on grilled sourdough and salmon rillettes on rye toast.
“We’re as serious about our food as about our breads,” Mr. Allum said. “Everything is made in-house, even our pickles and ketchup.” Wine, beer and Australian coffee will be served.
By far the most extravagant of the new arrivals is the Starbucks Reserve Roastery New York, which opened in December near the meatpacking district. Folded into the vast three-level coffee merchandise mart is a branch of Princi, a Milan bakery in which Starbucks is now a major investor and partner. (Breads are baked at a commissary in Red Hook, Brooklyn.)
Cliff Burrows, the head of the Starbucks retail division, said that bringing the bakery to the city was essential. “New York is the world stage,” he said.
At the maze of counters throughout the place there are some nice pastries, sandwiches made on focaccia and cornetti (croissants), and pizzas with varied toppings on somewhat doughy crusts scissored into squares.
Serious breads, though, are given short shrift. If you can find them, they’re lined up in a window to one side of the pizza station and sold by employees who seem to know little about them. The breads are attractive, but several had thin crusts and insubstantial interiors. At another Princi in the theater district, without the elaborate coffee experience, the breads and pastries are given a better spotlight.
Ole & Steen, 873 Broadway (18th Street), 929-209-1020, oleandsteen.us. (Opens Thursday)
Fabrique, 348 W 14th Street (Ninth Avenue), 347-210-5641, fabriquebakery.com. (February)
Bourke Street Bakery, 15 East 28th Street, 917-675-6394, bourkestreetbakery.com. (February)
Princi, Starbucks Reserve Roastery, 61 Ninth Avenue (15th Street), 212-691-0531; 1633 Broadway (51st Street), 212-247-2527; princi.com.
