4920 Balboa Blvd (at Ventura Blvd), Encino, CA
· 18 tips and reviews
First Dunkin’ Donuts in the SF Valley since the re-entering of the donut chain into SoCal.
Homelinx Technology Services: Donuts, coffee, East coast ambiance..
Brand new and of course super packed but the line moves quick! It is a DD so make sure to stick to coffee and donuts.
Le Pain Quotidien
15503 Ventura Blvd Ste 100 (Firmament Ave.), Encino, CA
· 8 tips and reviews
Friendly staff, nice atmosphere. Not busy yet(as of 8/21/12), so it’s easy to get a table. Chia muffins and trifles are great.
Abu Aya KD: Nice pastries and huge coffee cups
request the Iced Chamomile Mint Tea. Delicious!!!
Sweet Lady Jane
16403 Ventura Blvd Ste C (at Hayvenhurst), Encino, CA
· 7 tips and reviews
The triple berry cake is so light and refreshing yet you still get your cake fix. The croissants are amazing especially the almond croissant with the marzipan and it’s ridiculously amazingly large!
Great selection of pastries!
Cinnamon crumb muffins and creme cakes are very good..you might wanna try that!!
After 5, all muffins and bagels 2 for 1
Fast service, convenient parking, free wifi, not crowded, indoor and outdoor seating, coffee and soda refills, 2 for 1 pastries
The coffee danish was great! Also love the mini garlic croissants.
Delicious breakfast and brunch options! Love the churro pancakes and French toasts. The avo toast with egg is amazing. All the pastries, especially the pop tarts, are solid. I’d skip the quiche.
17000 Ventura Blvd (at Genesta Ave.), Encino, CA
Hot Dog Joint · 60 tips and reviews
If you like spicy, get the Buffalo Chicken Sandwich. Grilled chicken, coleslaw, chips and blue cheese dressing on a brioche bun. Amazing.
The Stand Blond beer is very refreshing
The Honey Blonde Ale goes great with nearly everything on the menu, and is an incredible value.
More Than Waffles
17200 Ventura Blvd #109 (btw Louise Ave & Oak Park Ave.), Encino, CA
· 90 tips and reviews
Such a lovely place. Mothers day carnations to all the moms. Complimentary coffee and muffins while you wait and the best waffle you will EVER eat!!
The PB and Nutella stuffed waffles are delish!
This is my absolute favorite Italian Restaurant ever, but I am disappointed with the new cannoli’s
Dine.Savor.Repeat. ™️ a Jesse Watrous Company: Their food was Excellent! I ate Bruschetta, Mushroom Risotto, Tiramisu & espresso. Truly Delish! Definitely one of new fave Italian Restaurants. 4/5 Stars 🙂
Great bread. Good food. They serve liquor.
Buca di Beppo
17500 Ventura Blvd (at Encino Ave), Encino, CA
· 17 tips and reviews
The Best cannoli in LA- so far
OMG the Prosciutto Stuffed Chicken with pesto cream sauce is amazing, try it you won’t be disappointed!
I love that they wrap up your leftovers for you! So kind!
A New York delicatessen with a sit down restaurant, deli counter and bakery. The baked goods here are delicious and reasonably priced. They also have wifi here.
Juan Jose Colin Arciniega: Great food. Great service.
Try Pastrami, matzo ball soup, Maria’s breakfast burrito, cheesecake, Greek olives, Texas cheeseburger.
During summer, order the watermelon and feta cheese combo with pita bread. Sooo delicious.They also have the best hip middle eastern atmosphere around the area.
Horrible service combined with automatic gratuity, mediocre food, and high-priced. Incredibly over-rated.
17660 Ventura Blvd (White Oak), Encino, CA
Fast Food Restaurant · 2 tips and reviews
Best chiken ever
Do curbside and avoid the long line in drive thru !!!
16461A Ventura Blvd, Encino, CA
· 31 tips and reviews
Venti Americano with 3 shots decaf and 1 regular. Really tasty and not too crazy-making.
Nothing like yumny white chocolate mocha over ice! Simply amazing!
Meatball sandwich hands down. If your cooking at home- you must get the meat sauce with the fresh pasta
My son works here and provides great service
Amazing sandwiches! All pasta and bakery items are made there.
Pâtisserie Rhubarbe
The popular Plateau pastry shop has a much-anticipated Holiday collection every year. For this year’s yule logs, has created two flavours, a gluten-free chocolate one with a manjari chocolate cookie base, a jivara chocolate crémeux, pecan mascarpone, caramel and pecans, and a passion-rhubarb-strawberry one with biscuit roulade, yoghurt crémeux, strawberry and rhubarb summer compote, passion fruit mousse, Breton shortbread
La Bête à Pain
La Bête à Pain is an exceptional bakery, pastry shop and all-around purveyor of phenomenal food. This year, they are offering 3 yule logs that will appeal to all tastes. The Signature log is made with dark chocolate mousse, vanilla diplomat cream, roasted hazelnuts, salted butter caramel, praline crunch and chocolate biscuit. The Maronnade is made with almond dacquoise, chestnut cream, vanilla whipped cream, almond shortbread crust, meringue, and chestnut shards. The Rose is a fruity creation with a raspberry mousse, pistachio crémeux, soft biscuit and raspberry compote.
Mlle Gâteaux
This cute pastry shop is the go-to spot in Villeray. Everything here is delicious, especially their rustic yet elegant cakes. is making three log flavours this year, a traditional chocolate-orange rolled log (the most popular), and a vanilla log with a strawberry-rhubarb centre and vanilla-strawberry biscuit layer. Their third log (and their favourite) is a maple, apple and roasted sunflower log. It is composed of a roasted sunflower financier with a melting local organic apple terrine and an organic maple syrup mousse.
Boucherie Édouard et Léo
Édouard et Léo is a neighbourhood butcher shop founded by Hoogan et Beaufort chef Marc-André Jetté with the intention of highlighting the work of small local producers and food artisans. One of the best restaurants in Montréal, Hoogan et Beaufort excels at flame cooking. They’ve used that expertise in creating their yule log this year, with a luscious chocolate mousse, a tasty praline, a chocolate biscuit and a wood-fired pear insert.
Farine & Cacao
Chic and modern pastry shop Farine & Cacao offers many beautifully composed desserts. They have created three gorgeous yule logs for the season. The speculoos and coffee log contains a speculoos whipped ganache, a rice pudding mousse, a coffee crémeux, a crunchy feuillantine and a soft coffee biscuit The citrus log has a jelly with kumquat, mandarin and caviar lemon, a white chocolate mousse, a lemon crémeux, confits mandarins, a crunchy citrus feuillantine and a lemon madeleine biscuit. The Peru chocolate log is a great combination of Peruvian chocolate mousse, lucuma (Peruvian fruit) crémeux, a lime confit, crispy rice and a brownie biscuit.
Les Givrés
’ frozen yule logs have become somewhat of a classic. Choose among 7 specialty logs featuring their outstanding ice creams and sorbets. The “campfire” one is especially delicious with its caramel-almond and chocolate ice cream, homemade grilled marshmallows, sponge cake and chocolate sauce. The “La Sainte Paix” one is shaped like a little log cabin and is made with praline and chocolate ice creams, haskap sorbet, dried meringue “walls”, a crunchy praline “roof”, a chocolate and haskap jelly sponge cake floor, and marshmallows.
Pâtisserie Crémy
Pastry chef and owner of , Rémy Charest, has always been known for his outrageous sweet creations. The yule logs he has created this year are no exception. Choose among the 3 available options. The first has a flourless chocolate biscuit, dark chocolate and haskap cream, haskap jelly, coffee mousseline and whipped cream, and a milk chocolate and buckwheat crunchy coating. The second is a sweet clover and currant roll with sponge cake, white chocolate and sweet clover whipped cream, currant jelly, and pecan crumble. The third is a sea buckthorn baba with vanilla and mascarpone cream, sea buckthorn baba, sea buckthorn jelly, and almond and camelina oil biscuit.
Sachère
LGBTQ+ Village cake shop makes gorgeous cakes all year round. Their yule logs are no exception and come in 3 unique flavours. The gluten-free Kamilia has a chestnut and rum mousse, gluten-free biscuit roulade topped with clementine marmalade, chestnut cream and gluten-free honey biscuit and Alunga milk chocolate. The Mosaïque is their vegan log with anoat and coconut base, coconut and cashew cream, apple and passion fruit biscuit, mango and passion fruit jelly in a mosaic pattern and is topped with Valrhona Inspiration vegan passionfruit chocolate and fried rice paper. And finally, the Madera log is a gorgeous, gold flicked creation with a smoked dark chocolate mousse (infused with Chinese Lapsang Souchong tea), banana cream, Sacher chocolate biscuit, dark chocolate feuilletine, miso caramel and soft banana biscuit. All their yule logs are available in 3 different sizes and can be purchased frozen or fresh.
Pâtisserie Petit Lapin
Pâtisserie Petit Lapin makes some of the cutest cakes in town, hands down. Even better for all dessert lovers, the pastel-hued creations are all free of the 10 most common allergens, gluten-free and vegan so everyone can indulge in some of the best holiday treats. For the Holidays, they have created 3 yule logs: a chocolate log, a vanilla log decorated with vanilla macarons, and a raspberry log decorated with raspberry macarons.
Boulangerie Andalos
You can find traditional yule logs at like their triple chocolate mousse one with Homemade praline feuilletine, creamy milk, dark, and white chocolate mousse, dark chocolate glaze and a topping of chocolate decorations. However, every year, this Middle-Eastern pastry shop creates a more exotic speciality yule log inspired by Arabic desserts. This year’s creation, the Halawet el-jibn log, is back by popular demand. The roll is filled with ricotta cream and topped with syrup infused with rose and orange blossom waters.
Pâtisserie Madeleine
Rosemont pastry shop has created three yule logs for this Holiday season. Their signature log with a Dulcey chocolate crisp, pecan, soft pecan biscuit, clementine marmalade, homemade pecan praline, and a Dulcey chocolate mousse sounds delicious.
Havre-aux-Glaces
With two locations open all year long, creates decadent yule logs, made with their artisanal sorbets and ice creams. With five different options to choose from this year, including the classic duo of dark chocolate and raspberry, as well as pear, maple syrup, and salted caramel. You’ll want to order early to reserve yours!
Maison Boulud
restaurant is housed inside the glamourous Ritz Carlton Hotel. The Yule logs they’ve created for this holiday season are elegant and delectable and come in three varieties. On offer are two nut, gluten and lactose free logs, one with a vanilla mousse, clementine heart, wafer and baba and one with a cheesecake mousse, gingerbread biscuit, and orange marmalade. The third is a chocolate caramel mousse log combining popcorn, hazelnuts, and a flourless chocolate base.
Marché Artisans
Fairmont Le Reine Elizabeth’s Marché Artisans is a beautiful food hall that pays tribute to local Québec food. They have created 6 yule log flavours for this Holiday season: blackcurrant and chestnut, citrus with flambéed meringue, exotic with coconut, mango and passion fruit, apple and ice cider, dark chocolate and one with boreal spices, milk chocolate and caramel.
Comptoir Épicerie Signé Toqué
Toqué’s (online and onsite) refined grocery shop out of its Beau Mont restaurant location and serves up elegant food to enjoy at home. This year Conptoir Épicerie are creating two yule logs, a mint-peach one and a chocolate one. Both are as beautiful as they are delicious.
Lecavalier Petrone
Lecavalier Petrone’s gorgeous chocolates and cakes are beautiful pieces of ephemeral art. Their logs are no exception. This year’s flavours include a caramel apple log, a peach and sea buckthorn log and a chocolate and hazelnut log. Unfortunately, they are all already sold out but make a note if you’d like to order one next year.
Chez Potier
Beloved pastry chef is offering four incredible logs this season. The Piémontella log has a soft hazelnut base, hazelnut crunch, mango and yuzu flavoured confit, airy Piedmont hazelnut mousse. The chilled tiramisu log comes with a mascarpone and vanilla ice cream, soft cookies soaked in Amarula flavoured coffee, roasted coffee ice cream from Structure roaster. The Mûroise has a cocoa and fleur de sel almond crisp, creamy dark chocolate “Mûroise” (blackberry & raspberry), “Mûroise” confit and velvety dark & milk chocolate mousse from Madagascar. And finally, the vanilla log comes with a soft pecan base, vanilla crème brûlée, caramel fleur de sel, and a Madagascar vanilla mousse.
Mamie Clafoutis
Popular bakery and pastry shop Mamie Clafoutis has many shops around Montréal. Their breads and croissants are some of the best in town, and so are their pastries. This year, they will be offering two yule logs, a chocolate and hazelnut one as well as a pistachio and raspberry one. Both are gluten free.
Le Toledo
Le Toledo is creating 3 flavours of yule logs this season. They will have a vanilla raspberry log with a homemade Quebec raspberry jam and white chocolate feuilletine, a blackcurrant chocolate log with a blackcurrant mousse concealed under a dark chocolate icing, and a vegan coconut passion log with a coconut cheesecake and passion fruit topping. They will be offering all three flavours in mini formats from the beginning of December to allow customers to taste them before choosing their favourite flavour for the holidays.
Première Moisson
is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year! This ubiquitous Québécois pastry shop is a master at crafting great breads, pastries and desserts. For the Holidays, they are offering several yule logs starting with their Citrus Signature log with a confit of blood oranges, grapefruit and lemon, a lemon mousse, and a citrus icing set on a gingerbread shortbread crust. Chocolate lovers will appreciate the Chocolate Buttercream log with a chocolate sponge cake with chocolate buttercream and covered in a chocolate ganache. The Praline Buttercream log is a sponge cake soaked in a syrup infused with the Québec-made liqueur Noisettino, covered in praline buttercream. The Exotic log is a coconut dacquoise base made with rice flour, covered with a pineapple, banana, passion, mango and lemon confit, a whipped ganache with local ginger, and an exotic frosting made with the same fruits as the confit.
Aux Merveilleux de Fred
Famous Lille-based pastry shop Aux Merveilleux de Fred specializes in the Merveilleux, an airy cake from the north of France made of layers of meringue and whipped cream. The two yule logs they’re offering this year are inspired by their pastries. The Merveilleux log will be chocolate-flavoured with shavings of dark chocolate and the Incroyable will have speculoos biscuit and whipped cream coated with shaved white chocolate.
Unicone
Plateau ice cream and cookie shop Unicone is offering 3 flavours of yule logs this Holiday season. Choose between the Baklava log with rose water, Iranian pistachios, and baklava pieces; the From Paris to Bombay log with dark chocolate cardamom ice cream, Aubenas chestnut cream, and a Masala spice cake; the vegan and gluten-free Jardin d’Eden log with pandan and coconut ice cream, and a soursop raspberry mousse; and finally, the Ube Oreo log with ube ice cream, Oreo cookie pieces, and Pandan white chocolate mousse.
Pâtisserie TM
is a pastry shop that blends Japanese flavours and tradition with French knowhow. This year they will be making 4 different yule logs flavour: a Mont-Blanc (chestnut and cream) one, a matcha passion one, an apple and maple one and a chocolate, banana and pecan one.
Arhoma
The beloved Hochelaga-Maisonneuve bakery is in a festive mood and has created three yule logs for the season. The first one is composed of a cake roulade, an orange crémeux, a delicious, sweet clover cream, and decorated with crunchy praline bits. Chocolate lovers will love the log made with a chocolate cake, pecan praline, chocolate crémeux and a grand cru chocolate mousse. Finally, the third log is a festive one full of surprises with a crunchy almond biscuit, a blackcurrant and currant confit and a mascarpone mousse with Tonka bean.
Fanfare
One of Villeray’s most popular and loved bakery and brunch and pizza spot, Fanfare also makes great desserts. In fact, their pastry chef, Pascale Billy Robert, has honed her skills for a decade in some of Montréal’s most famous establishments such as Graziella, Pastaga and Europea. Their Holiday logs include a more traditional chocolate one with hazelnut praline, caramel, and rock icing as well as a beautiful looking flamed meringue one filled with lemon cream and Bavarian mousse with sweet clover.
Audacieuse Vanille
Audacieuse Vanille is a creative, gluten-free, vegan, and soy-free pastry shop in the heart of Verdun that’s been providing pleasure and sweet treats to people with special diets. For the Holiday season this year, their team has created 2 yule logs: a lavender mousse, lemon curd, and blueberry confit one on a thyme dacquoise and a vegan milk chocolate mousse, rose pastry cream, and litchi on a coconut dacquoise. Both are vegan, gluten and soy free, of course.
Rustique Pie Kitchen
Located in the Saint-Henri, has a loyal fan base who love their fun edible treats. This Holiday season, Rustique has created two Yule logs that are sure to please everyone. The pecan yule log includes a pecan sponge cake, pecan crunch, whipped cream with brown sugar and white chocolate and is decorated with cream fudge pieces and caramelized pecans in maple syrup. The red currant and chocolate log has a flourless chocolate cake, white chocolate crisp, red currant jelly, and red currant whipped cream and is topped with mushroom-shaped meringues, jelly drops, and cocoa nibs.
Pâtisserie Zébulon
Vegan pastry shop Zébulon has created two yule logs for this year’s holiday celebrations. The Yin log combines an almond biscuit roll, toasted green tea crémeux, Québec sea buckthorn jam, a chocolate mousse, chocolate icing and dark and white chocolate decorations. The Yan log is made with black sesame pain de Gènes, lime mousse, crispy puffed rice, almond praline cream, citrus fruit ganache and a black sesame biscuit. Both are gluten free.
Les Gourmandises de Marie-Antoinette
Located close to Hochelaga’s Marché Maisonneuve, this lovely pastry shop is run by a young and passionate team. This year, they’re offering 5 flavours of yule logs, including 3 floureless ones, one with chocolate, one with blackcurrant and pistachio and one with caramel. The other two flavours are lemon and poppyseed and chestnut and gingerbread.
Fous Desserts
Beloved pastry shop Fou Desserts offers great Christmas logs every year. Their logs come in three flavours this year. The gluten, nut and gelatine free Chocolate-Passion log contains a Tainori dark chocolate mousse, Tainori dark chocolate caramel crémeux with Andaliman pepper, chocolate roulade biscuit, passion fruit compote and chocolate shortbread base. The gluten and nut free Maïdo log has a Madagascar and Tahitian vanilla ganache, a pineapple and geranium cream, a biscuit roulade, a pineapple compote and a shortbread base. And finally, the Orélyx log is a white chocolate mousse, caramel, tamarind caramel supreme, pear and clove jelly, chocolate shortbread and coffee on an Amaretto financier base.
Mayssam Samaha is a food and travel writer and blogger and the founder behind the blog Will Travel for Food. She travels the world in search of the next culinary discovery. From Iceland to South Africa, she’s already visited over 30 countries and there’s nothing she enjoys more than wandering around a farmers’ market in a foreign city. She is also the founder of the SAISONS intimate dinner series highlighting Québec products and chefs.
A dreamy slice of Paris awaits in a surprising place
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Paris-Brest with pistachio cream and pistachio praline between two layers of choux at Maison Nico.Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
Downtown San Francisco is a funny place to find paradise these days. But amongst the drab, looming towers (in Warship Gray) and still-empty hotels (in Beaux Arts Beige) there shimmers a vivid firmament of pink ambrosia. It’s a heaven of sorts: a gustatorial Eden composed of croissant and pastry, of weepingly fragrant orange flower brioche and Proustian madeleines, delicately constructed lobster gelees and bawdy, burly pâté en croûte — all of a glowing, riotous quality and uncommonly deft execution.
It took the pandemic to get us here, some strange inversion of reality in which acclaimed fine-dining chef Nicolas Delaroque — of Michelin-lauded, semi-eponymous restaurant Nico — might reinvent himself as the ringleader of a stunning all-day épicerie. The term refers to a sort of catch-all French establishment that draws on various traditions in grocery, baking, pastry and a light-yet-satisfying lunch. At Maison Nico, this means elegant pastries and elaborate savories; distinguished wines and Chartreuse-spiked cappuccinos; and growing crowds hoisted atop pastel-pink bistro tables along the shop’s corner of Montgomery Street.
Paris-born Delaroque and his wife and partner, Andrea Delaroque, conjured Maison Nico out of the stress and disruption of 2020. It is a “restaurant pivot” of the highest form, the very pinnacle of the trope — a slice of Paris with extra butter in the literal shadow of the Transamerica Pyramid.
Andrea and Nicolas Delaroque opened Maison Nico as a pandemic pivot.Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
Nico, the restaurant, closed in the early days of the 2020 pandemic. Maison Nico, the épicerie, opened in October of that cursed year; the Delaroques knew that fine dining in San Francisco would be upended indefinitely, but financial realities meant they couldn’t walk away from the space.
“We simply didn’t know what else to do,” recalls Nicolas, who had no real prior pastry or bakery experience to speak of outside of French culinary school. Prior to opening his own restaurant, Delaroque cooked for Dominique Crenn.
But sometimes stress results in ingenuity; the Delaroques found hope in the idea of a new concept, the germ of which had been born at an earlier version of Nico, back when the restaurant was located in Pacific Heights. At the bar, the team served pâté en croûte as well as a terrine. Perhaps a daytime version of these items — with help from a small pastry team, all-hands-on-deck style — might connect with the small community of those still living in and around the Financial District?
Pâté en croûte de canard et poire (left) features duck, pork, pear, pistachio and warm spices, while the pâté en croûte de tout cochon (right) highlights pork, apricot, chanterelle mushroom, hazelnut, cumin, Cognac and white wine. Maison Nico has become known for its striking pâté en croûte.Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle
There is a thriving, boisterous subculture for this particular dish on social media. Once synonymous with French peasant cuisine, the visual appeal of pâté en croûte is now the stuff of 10,000 hashtags. It helps that pâté en croûte is kind of weird: various meat pastes are held together in a forced terrine with nuts and fruit, often coated in a layer of flavored gelatin aspic, and all of it encased in pastry crust. It looks gorgeous on the internet and provokes a strong reaction from all who encounter it — mostly positive, but sometimes trepidatious, which only gins up the algorithm more. Nicolas Delaroque is a bona fide celebrity within this world, earning a finalist spot at the 2022 Championnat du Monde de Pâté-Croûte (yes really) in Lyon and drawing global praise online for his mastery of the form (flame emojis and French praises abound).
After a brief reset between April and July to acquire more equipment and dial-in recipes, Maison Nico reopened properly this summer, fully dedicated to its new identity. Today the kitchen at Maison Nico buzzes with a petite brigade of chefs, plus counter service and a small team downstairs. A larger oven and proofer were acquired, and daily recipe testing and experimentation continues apace, led by Nicolas Delaroque alongside pastry chef Alena Rozanski and pastry sous-chef Kelly Teramoto. Andrea Delaroque helps with daily operations, and Vanessa Yap Einbund produces the shop’s social media presence.
Customers admire the pastry selection at Maison Nico.Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
Part of what sets this place apart is the sheer diversity of its daily offering, something that the Delaroques find as fundamental to the experience.
Savories are the main event here, always changing and evolving with the seasons and whims of Maison Nico. On one visit you might find pâté en croûte of duck studded with pistachios and set beneath a layer of pear aspic; or chicken and lobster in sauce Nantua (a sort of crayfish béchamel) held together by a delicate pastry crust; or a pork, chanterelle and apricot terrine set with cumin, cognac and white wine. There is typically the option to order my personal favorite, the deceptively simple and beautifully green jambon persille, in which creamy ham is layered in a terrine of parsley and wine, as simple and French as any dish can be, and utterly perfect on a baguette with a dollop of good butter.
Croissant de Saison with pear and almond at Maison Nico.Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
Some of the shop’s earliest offerings, including the brioche orange flower pastry that so moved me on my first visit, have yet to reappear. Ever the perfectionist, Delaroque and his team are still working to dial in the brioche pastries that so charmed me on those original visits. “We’ve had an issue of consistency,” Delaroque says, “and we’re still working on new things — it is a process.”
But other, newer offerings startle at the Maison, including a Paris-Brest, originally offered only on the weekends and now available daily. Traditionally a wheel of patè a choux filled with fragrant praline cream, in the hands of pastry chefs Rozanski and Teramoto the addition of fresh Santa Barbara pistachios creates a subtle, lovely sweetness, ever so slightly tinged in a shade of pastel green.
The single most notable offering at Maison Nico is perhaps the simplest: pâté grand-mère, quite literally “grandmother’s pâté,” which for the French is something like a culinary birthright. Every last épicerie in Paris makes this, and so do many butcher shops in the United States. It is a deceptively facile dish, composed of pork, chicken liver and a blend of spices. In Nicolas Delaroque’s version, there is an ethereal complexity, a platonic ideal — perhaps from the spices, imported via French purveyor Maison Malnou, or maybe from the quality of the pork, or the gentle hint of sweetness from Delaroque’s choice to caramelize the chicken livers.
Pâté grand-mère is a seemingly simple dish with deep complexity at Maison Nico.Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
Or it could be that in its simplicity, this dish functions like a distillation of the concept itself, in which a chef of Delaroque’s caliber would focus on cooking in such a humble way, resulting in a product that feels effortlessly natural and meant to be, despite the fact that a great deal of effort has gone into it every step of the way.
“All of this — this pivot, this Maison Nico — it has been a matter of try and fail,” he says, with characteristic French fatalism. “But it is very rewarding now to see it well-received.”
Oui chef, but the line is out the door most mornings, and the guests keep arriving from near and far. When the pastries and the pâtés are this superb, then surely — bien sur — the reward is now ours.
Maison Nico. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. 710 Montgomery St., San Francisco. maisonnico.com
, /PRNewswire/ — The biggest stars of the dolce foodservice firmament will be taking part in SIGEP-The Dolce World Expo (44th edition), Italian Exhibition Group’s international trade show of artisan gelato, pastry, bakery and coffee, scheduled to take place in , , from 21st to 25th January, in conjunction with AB Tech Expo (7th edition), which focuses on technologies and machinery for bakery, pastry and confectionery. Sigep is therefore an unmissable event at which to discover new products and improve your knowledge.Participating pastry chefs, who have taken the excellence of their art all over the world and become veritable living legends of the sector, will include: masters , Salvatore De Riso, , , , as well as , Executive Pastry Chef Harrods in , and Giancarlo Timballo, President of Cogel Fipe and organiser of the Gelato World Cup.
a photo of the previous Sigep’s editions
And for those who love international challenges, the 44th edition will be hosting the Gelato Europe Cup, which will see , , , , and competing for the final of the 10th Gelato World Cup to be held at SIGEP 2024; competitors from Korea, , , and will be competing for the Women’s Pastry Queen title, while the Junior Pastry World Championship will involve young people under 25 years of age.In the Bakery Arena, the 5th edition of Bread in The City, an international bakery championship in cooperation with Club Richemont, will feature teams from , , , , , , , and . Coffee artists and expert baristas will be battling it out in the Coffee Arena to excel in the seven SCA Italy (the Italian branch of the Specialty Coffee Association) competitions valid for the World Coffee Championships.
FOCUS ON SIGEP and A.B. Tech Expo 2023Dates: 21-25 January 2023; Organization: Italian Exhibition Group SpA; editions: 44th Sigep and 7th A.B. Tech Expo; frequency: annual; event: international trade show; entry: for trade only; info: https://en.sigep.it
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Italian Exhibition Group Logo (PRNewsfoto/Italian Exhibition Group)
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SOURCE Italian Exhibition Group