One65 Patisserie

In 2019, a new French inspired dining destination opened in SF, right near Union Square: One65.

"ONE65 is an innovative multi-level culinary destination with French flair that offers four distinct modern dining experiences under one roof and is the vision of James Beard Award-winning Chef/Partner Claude Le Tohic. Ranging from casual to fine dining, each floor showcases its own individual concept and design. Everything at ONE65 is made in-house, from gourmet ice cream to beautiful loaves of fresh-baked bread."

One65 is not a single restaurant, but rather, an entire multi-story building.  On the ground floor is the one that first called out to me: the patisserie.  Above that is the Bistro & Grill on second and third floors, Elements bar & lounge on the fourth, and O by Claude Le Tohic on the top two.  The venues get progressively more formal as you ascend.  But I started with the patisserie, as, well, I sure do have a sweet tooth and enjoy my desserts.

Individual Desserts.

Walking in to the patisserie you are met with display case after display case featuring a line up of elaborate individual desserts.  No descriptions are given, but staff members are abundant behind the counter to tell you al about them.

There are options for those looking for something decadent and chocolate, and those wanting light and fruity, and everything in-between.

Pastries.

If pastries are more your craving, there are cases and cases of those too.  Classic croissants and danishes to more elaborate brioches and layered creations.

Everything looks incredible, and fairly top notch.  Making decisions here is ... near impossible.

The cafe portion of this space also does serve breakfast items like a french omelette, french toast, croissant eggs benny, or handful of tartines, and lunch selections range from paninis and flatbreads to bugers, wagyu meatballs, or even black cod.  A small amount of indoor and outdoor sidewalk seating is available.

I've now enjoyed their treats twice: once for delivery, and one dine-in.  I'll gladly return to try more.

Fancy Carrier.

My order arrived in a fancy, but not practical, carrier.  It was just for transport, I could't really store my item for later in it, as it wasn't air tight (and, it was also huge).

Lemon Yuzu Cake. $10.

"Lemon jelly, yuzu cream, lemon biscuit, lemon ganache, croustillant."

The fancy carrier did not prevent my cake from topping over in transit.  I didn't really mind, but, it was a bit funny to open such a fancy thing and see the slight carnage.

This was my first dessert from One65, and although I knew they get great reviews, I wasn't really sure what to expect.  And yes, if you know me, you know I don't generally go for citrus desserts, but, I think I've turned a corner on that front, mostly due to actually liking a key lime item from Fillings & Emulsions in the Salt Lake City airport (zomg, so good!), and for some reason, out of all the amazing sounding items, somehow, the lemon yuzu cake called out to me.

The description gave me a decent idea what to expect, but, it still was a bit different than I anticipated.

The base was a thick biscuit.  I didn't actually taste the lemon in this element, but it was sweet, crumbly, and more dominant than I really liked.  It was easily 1/3 or more of the cake, not a thin base just to provide structure.  Not being a cookie girl, the significant impact this had on the eating experience wasn't ideal for me.  It was also really quite sweet.

Above that was a very thin, slightly dry, plain cake layer.  I didn't even notice this layer until midway through eating it, because it was so easily lost with the thicker base.

Above that was a cream layer, and it was citrus-y, I guess yuzu.  Lightly sweet, lightly tart, enjoyable enough.  The sides coated in what seemed like thin lemon flavored white chocolate, I suspect this is the lemon ganache they refer to.  I liked the sweetness and crunch.  There was some decoration on top as well - a little white chocolate, a tiny wafer, and a thin line of citrus jelly.  I think that very minimal decorative line was the only citrus jelly in it, and I had certainly expected more, and think it would have benefited from a more intense hit of citrus.

Overall, the components of this were all fine, but it didn't wow me, and again, it was just too cookie (er, biscuit) heavy for me.  ***.

Zephyr Exotic. $15.
Special Collab with guest chef.

When we visited in person a few months later, my co-worker went for the Zephyr Exotic, which was a limited special with a visiting pastry chef, available for two days only.  It had a coconut biscuit base, was covered in remarkably light and fluffy coconut mousse, which in turn wrapped mango banana crèmeux, with passion fruit confit in the center.  I of course stole a bite, after he was exclaiming at how unexpected the consistency was.  I think we both expected it to either be a shell, or maybe meringue, but it was just light-as-air mousse.  

I was a bit let down by the flavors however - I expected a stronger coconut flavor, as it was quite subtle.  The passionfruit was strong when you got some of the confit from the center.  Overall, fun textures, very beautiful, but not as flavorful as I was hoping. ***.

Mignardises. $10.

Because I hate making decisions, I was pretty thrilled to see the mignardises offerings, each with 5 assorted bites.  They had several different assortments, I picked this one for one reason: it had a chestnut item!  The others did not.

Other options did include more chocolate forward items, or mini cream puffs, etc, but mine was all a collection of assorted mousses, with incredible complexity in every single one.  Not only were they adorable, but, wow, there was a lot going on technique-wise to craft these tiny bites.  At $2 per piece, this seemed more than reasonable.  

I enjoyed my platter of bites, and would recommend this as a great way to sample several items, unless you really clearly know what else you'd like.

Chocolate Cherry.

The cherry was an obvious looker.  Yes, it looked like a cherry at first glance, a chocolate coated one of course, but on closer inspection one could see that this was actually not a cherry at all.  Instead it had all
the elements of their larger black forest dessert, with chocolate ganache and black cherry confit inside, dipped in a chocolate shell, with a chocolate stem and of course a flourish of gold leaf.

Creamy, chocolately, good cherry flavor.  The chocolate shell had a nice snap.  A fun item.  ***+.

Individual Size Desserts - including Black Forest.

Here you can see the cherry mignardise, perched on top of the black forest, just one of many elements that go into making the full size (individual) dessert.

Chocolate Mandarin.

The chocolate mandarin box mirrors their latest croissant, which comes with mandarin jam, blood orange & vanilla toasted meringue.   Here we had a chocolate sponge base, mandarin-vanilla crémeux, mandarin jam, vanilla meringue, all in a chocolate box shell with edible gold leaf and chocolate decoration.

The mandarin flavor was strong, due to the jam, which made it very vibrant. The meringue surprised me, as I wasn't expecting it, and thought that was just a vanilla cream on top.  It was light and fluffy, and quite delicate.  And then chocolate elements of course. Mandarin and chocolate are a standard pairing, e.g. those chocolate oranges at Christmas, so this worked.

Overall every element was well made, it tasted fresh, but wasn't really flavors I'm drawn to, and wouldn't really want again.  ***.

Chocolate Raspberry.

Fruity goodness!  This is a mini version of their full size 6" Chocolate Raspberry Cake, which has dark chocolate raspberry mousse, vanilla crème brûlée, raspberry confit, and chocolate sponge.

This one was less complicated than some of the others, but I really enjoyed it.  The dome was the dark chocolate raspberry mousse, thick, rich, sweet, lovely raspberry flavor.  The mirror glaze of raspberry confit was even more intensely fruity, but not cloying, again, lovely raspberry flavor. 

Rather than a chocolate sponge cake base as the full size item has, it was all perched on a crispy little biscuit with crunchy bits in it - hazelnut sable perhaps?  The texture was fantastic, and the crunch from the biscuit and the creamy dome were a lovely combo.  Tiny dot of vanilla crème brûlée on top, a piece of fresh raspberry, and gold leaf sealed the deal for an incredible bite.

This was absolutely incredible, and I'd get it again, in full size, in a heartbeat.  Perfection really. *****.

Yuzu?

Next up, another one that was less complicated, same formula as the previous:  a dome of thick mousse, with a surrounding fruity sweet mirror glaze, perched on top the same crispy biscuit.  I think this one was yuzu, at first I thought lemon, then orange.  Citrusy, but not nearly as strong of flavors, in the mousse or glaze, as the raspberry one.  By my second bite, I actually thought it might be mango passionfruit, but, just not an intense mango nor passionfruit.  I'm still not sure what it was.

This was fine, and enjoyable bite, and I again really did love the biscuit base (so crunchy! So nutty!), but the flavors were more muted than the previous bite.  ***+.

Chestnut?  Vanilla?

I saved the one I was most excited for for last, the chestnut.  At this point, I knew what to expect, as it had the same awesomely crunchy nutty biscuit base, and I expected a chestnut flavored ganache dome, with chestnut glaze around it.  Bonus points for the even fancier (white) chocolate work here, and the edible silver leaf (instead of gold).

One65 doesn't currently have a chestnut dessert on the menu, but in the winter, they had one with vanilla, chestnut whipped ganache, and chestnut confit, and I hoped this would be a mini version of that in some way.  I really like chestnut, and it is rare to see it on menus.

I didn't really taste chestnut.  This wasn't a bad treat, but, I would have never thought it was chestnut if it hadn't been described that way by the server.  I still wonder if they were incorrect.  To me, it was vanilla - not a bad thing, it was creamy, lightly sweet, and pleasant ganache-mousse inside, and a sweet and creamy white chocolate shell, but, I just didn't taste the chestnut I was looking for.  One65 makes a vanilla chantilly individual dessert with vanilla mousse and vanilla cremeux, that looks fairly similar to this, just, much bigger.  

So, this was fine.  Sweet and creamy, same great biscuit base, but, I was let down because I expected chestnut.  ***.

Drip Coffee. $3.50.

With a Yelp checkin, you can get a free drip coffee.  It was served in a cappuccino mug, so quickly got cool, but otherwise was decent enough coffee.  Not remarkable, but not too bitter nor acidic, didn't taste old.  ***.

Espresso. $3.25.

I also had an espresso to go.  The espresso was quite strong, a bit bitter.  It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. Pretty average. ***.