The pastry chef making his magic. And that's a stack of butter slabs on the left there, not dough...
We started the morning by heading out of town and going into Ballard. Our goal was to check if Café Besalu‘s croissants were as good as Tartine‘s in San Francisco as someone had assured me. Given that I ate my #1 croissant at Tartine, both my sister and I were eager to validate this claim. Oh yes, we will venture far and wide for pastries and sweets!
Once we’d found the place, a relatively short line greeted us. We were just inside the doors and was able to claim a small table for our party. Our territory staked-out, we stared intently at the pastry window and began to pick out what would make our haul. Once at the counter, I probably spent a good five minutes babbling out my order. We’d managed to claim 10 items – about 75% of what was in the window at the time.
The two mainstays: a croissant and a pain au chocolat. I give the pastry edge to the croissant. Was it as good as Tartine? I give the edge to Tartine's glossy-brown surface - but only the very slightest edge!
Gruyère and onion. Savoury, sweet, flaky, crispy... so very, very good. My favourite. Worth going back for!
Ham and swiss. Tasty. But no match for the Gruyère and onion - two favourites of mine.
Now, since we ordered pretty much one of everything, we didn’t get to eat it all in one go. I mean, we tried, but it wasn’t happening. So in the end, we packed up the Schnecken, sacristan, cardamom twist, checkerboard cookie, hazelnut twist, and some scone I couldn’t remember (nor did I get to taste!). On our second round at the counter (yes, worth lining up and getting more!), a peach pastry had just arrived, so I grabbed that too. Sadly, I think that it could have benefited from some time to cool down and the other pastries, while tasty the next day, weren’t as good as I think they would have been had we been able to make more room in our already crammed stomachs.
I was also denied a taste of a few of the pastries, as I had unthinkingly passed the bag to family for breakfast the next morning. In particular, I had wanted to try the Almond Schnecken. Ah well. I will just have to make my way back to Besalu the next time I’m in Seattle! There’s also a bread shop next door that I had wanted to get a demi-baguette from to try, but I’ll have to roll that in to “next time” as well.
- Café Besalu 5909 24th Avenue NW, Seattle
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