Foodie Series: The Pastry Shop | A Dying Art

No matter which part of world you’re in, pastry shops have a certain common aura and atmosphere to them. Maybe it’s the fantasy like creations that the wonderful chefs have produced, or the sterile displays that let the grande-oeuvres shine; in fact I get the same calm sensation in a pastry shop as I do in an art gallery. It’s never particularly noisy, just calm chatter or pure silence as the sensualists, bon vivants and hedonists indulge on their favourite guilty pleasures. And a great moment of climax with the hissing sound of steam being released from the espresso machine. Followed by small chatter, forks dingling against the plate and sipping sounds all around the shop. A therapeutic moment of serenity and peace. But all this wonderfulness is endangered, the pastry shop and the unique experience it brings are a dying art, and a cause worth fighting for.

A combination of calorie counting culture and our fast paced lifestyles-the two being closely related-have endangered pastry shops. That is not to say there are no pastry shops in this city, there are plenty, and a few are good. But much like fast coffee culture, fast pastry shops do little justice to the therapeutic experience of a real pastry shop. Over the next few weeks, I will cover a few “pastry galleries” that are my guilty pleasures and stay true to their roots.