The Pastry Box

The Pastry Box Is Where Chocolate Chip Cookies Break Away From the Competition | Eater NY

"On a quiet side street of Alphabet City beneath a hot-pink awning, I discovered a small, brightly glowing bakery that restored my mother’s faith in chocolate chip cookies: a flat, relatively thin, 5½-inch-wide, Maldon-sprinkled, chewy disc of dough splotched with molten milk and dark Valrhona chocolate. Tiara Bennett opened the shop without much fanfare at the end of June, and while the cookie is the standout, the bakery also turns out perfected classic brownies and black-and-white cookies—her guiding principle is “classic favorites with premium flavors.” Bennett trained in pastry and honed her skills at restaurants like Legacy, Maialino, Café Boulud, and Daniel, and you can taste her French-influenced technique even as she promises to keep forthcoming galettes and croissants super classic. She’s building a neighborhood business—taking custom cake orders, developing wholesale accounts, and watching mini apple pies and loaf-cake slices fly out the door—preferring a grounded community base to fleeting viral fame; on a recent late Friday afternoon a family of regulars and their toddling cookie-devotee made that neighborhood vibe unmistakable." - Charlotte Druckman