Petit Chou, NYC

The New York bakery scene is incredible.  My list of top places to check out seems infinite, and my list of places I've loved is just as long.  I'm a dessert and baked goods girl to the core, so this really is a key part of my New York experience when I visit.

And this time, I finally made it to Petit Chou, one that had been near the top of my lists to visit or order from for a while.  Relatively young, they opened in 2020.  It is located in the East Village (*excellent* bakery scene overload!), and was right around the corner from where I was staying.  I only ended up visiting once, but adored my items, and can't wait to return.

"Petit Chou is a French inspired bakery with a special focus on choux pastry. Choux pastry is the base dough for all eclairs, cream puffs and profiteroles. When prepared properly it is light, crispy, with a tender interior and a perfectly hollow center. This provides us the perfect vehicle to deliver you with generously flavorful bites."

As you may guess from the name, they do specialize in choux pastry (eclairs, puffs), although have quite an extensive lineup of other items, which is important for me, as I don't generally care for choux.

Exclairs.

The first section has all the choux based items, starting with 4 kinds of beautiful looking eclairs, none of which appealed to me though, because, choux.

Puffs.

Next, more choux, the puffs.  People adore these, and I'll admit they look nothing like normal cream puffs (as they are giant and have toppings), but, still choux.

Danishes / Savory Croissants.

I was more drawn to the viennoiserie.  

Moving over to the laminated pastry section starts with 4 kinds of danish (one of which is savory, filled with scallion cream cheese), and a savory quiche nestled into a croissant dough nest.  These are all quite large, and looked beautifully decorated, but not necessarily amazing, although so many reviews talk about the quality of the pastry it made me think I must be missing something, visually.

The bottom row had the standard basic butter croissant, a ham and cheese one, and their signature breakfast croissandwich, all of which are heated up if you wish.

Pies, rolls, croissants, specials.

The finally section had what looked to me like all the heavy hitters: a strawberry and cream roll and banana cream pie (both of which are laminated pastry items), their chocolate and almond croissants, the cinnamon roll and very well regarded thick chocolate chip cookie, and a few weekend specials (peach crumble roll, peach monkey bread).

I basically wanted all of these.

Weekend Specials & Petit Gâteau.

Two more weekend specials were here, banana pudding and strawberry shortcake.  Both looked pretty great (although the pudding was massive, like everything!), and as a pudding lover (hence why my blog has a label dedicated to it), this was clearly a welcome special.  Since I had intended to get the other banana pudding item that is always on the menu (the banana cream pie), I asked about the difference (besides, obviously, the crust).  I was told the pudding has vanilla wafers in it, and a banana pastry cream, and (I think?) no fresh bananas, where the pie has fresh bananas and regular pastry cream.  The shortcake also looked great, but do note that it is not a New England style strawberry shortcake with a biscuit base, fresh macerated berries, and whipped cream, but rather a layer cake, with cake, strawberry compote, cream, and a strawberry topping.

This area also had the three petit gâteau always on the menu: blueberry cheesecake (which I nearly got as well), the chocolate supreme (known to be very sweet and chocolately!), and gluten-free tropical cake.

Goodies.

My first visit, I managed to pick only two items, which was exceptionally hard to do, but, really, they are so massive, it wouldn't make sense to get more as a solo person (and even this was an endeavour to consume!).

Double Chocolate Croissant. $7.50.

"Chocolate croissant dough rolled with two chocolate batons. Filled with chocolate cremeux."

I knew the chocolate croissant was not a standard "pain au chocolate" with batons of dark chocolate inside a standard laminated dough, nor even just one made with chocolate in the croissant dough too.  I knew from reading so many reviews from others what lurked within.  I knew from scoping it out in person a few days prior what it would look like.  I knew it would not be a standard shape, size, or contents like any other product with a similar name.  But even though  I knew what to expect, I was still taken back by the loaf size when it arrived.  It was so big, and so heavy.  And really, it was a loaf!  What croissant looks like this?

I found a knife to cut off a section.  The pastry shattered beautifully.  Shards, shards everywhere.  Excellent.  So incredibly crispy.  As expected, it did indeed have a mild chocolate flavor to it.  Very good pastry, but the insides are were this got even more interesting.

Double Chocolate Croissant: Inside.

Why yes, here you see what lay within!  Again, I knew what to expect, but still, wowzer.  It was stuffed full, to the brim, with rich dark chocolate cremeux AND multiple batons of dark chocolate.  They call it a double chocolate croissant, but, I clearly count three chocolates: in the dough, in the cremeux, the batons.  Maybe two of them use the same kind of chocolate, so only two distinct types are used?  Anyway.  These fillings.  Wow.

The cremeux was intense.  Very intense.  It was perhaps the thickest, richest, most chocolately pudding I have ever experienced.  It was heavy, and just a few bites of it left you a bit overwhelmed, and yet, it was just one component of this.  I loved it, but, I really think it needed whipped cream and fresh berries to balance it out (which, I did with the second half, the next day, I used just the pudding + whip + berries + cocoa nibs).  Insanely intense.

Then, the dark chocolate batons.  This already had so much chocolate going on, did it need those too?  Absolutely not.  But were they great?  Well, yes.  Very high quality, dark chocolate.  

I really enjoyed all the elements of this, and I think it was likely one of the most chocolately things I've ever consumed, but I don't think I'd get it again (unless I planned from the start to deconstruct).  I just couldn't quite appreciate it as a complete item, and greatly preferred to just have the pastry + dark chocolate batons and the pudding separately.  Still, at least 4/5, maybe higher, and definitely 2-3 servings, which makes the price pretty remarkable.

Banana Cream Pie. $7.

"Pie shaped croissant filled with fresh bananas and topped with vanilla pastry cream."

The item I was most excited for was the banana cream pie.  I adore cream pies and puddings.  I knew this would not be a standard cream pie though - not with a standard pastry pie crust, nor a cookie crust, nor even a graham cracker crust, all of which are pretty common with cream pies.  No, I knew they use a laminated croissant pastry as the crust, and also that it would have a different shape than most pie, as, well, it wasn't round.  And I knew it wouldn't have a whipped cream layer on top like most cream pies.  So, calling it a banana cream pie is a bit of a stretch, and luckily I knew what I was getting and still wanted this, but if you were expecting a normal one, this might be quite the surprise.  Think of it as an overstuffed huge banana cream danish maybe?

Anyway, diving in!  The pastry base was truly exceptional.  My mind was blown by this, really.  The level of butteriness and decadence is truly unlike anywhere else.  The depth of flavor, just, wow.  This is probably the best tasting laminated pastry dough I've ever had.  It of course also had plenty of layers and was nicely crispy, but, wow, the flavor in this.  Unreal.  It made me immediately want to try the danishes.

Then there was the body of the pie, very thick, rich, pastry cream.  The menu said it was not banana flavor, but rather, vanilla, although I swear I could taste banana in it.  Sweet but not overly so.  The thickness and consistency were perfect.  It was very, very good, and I would have been happy just eating a bowl of it as pudding (perhaps with some whipped cream and berries).

The banana element was fresh bananas, nestled in amongst the cream.  Big thick slices, thicker probably than I've ever had in a banana cream pie before.  The banana was fresh, not mushy, not brown, etc.  Good fresh banana, no more, no less.

So put this all together, and yes, you have something banana cream pie adjacent, although certainly non-traditional due to the base and lack of whipped cream on top.  I think it would easily satisfy any banana cream pie cravings, but also any cravings for a great pastry.   I still can't get over just how incredible that pastry base is.  Perfect 5/5, really in the top 3 pastries of my life.

Like all items from Petit Chou, there was nothing petite about this, and it was amusingly large.  From photos I had thought it was more like the size of a big Chinese egg tart, but, yeah, no.  It was 3 servings, again making the $7 price insanely reasonable.