Cupmudgeonism

Sad Moments: Balthazar Introduces the ‘Cupcake du Jour’

To complement its rotating array of daily soups, salads, and sandwiches, Balthazar Bakery has always kept lunch interesting with a special dessert, whether it be a cherry galette, red berries in puff pastry, raspberry mille feuille, or a lemon soufflé tart. Last month, it added another daily offering to the mix: A $4.50 cupcake du jour. Every day, a cupcake. Lunch with Front Studio is a little freaked out about this: “So weird to walk into Balthazar, that bastion of French pastisseries, and find cupcakes.” Yeah, well try opening up two months of daily-special calendars and seeing cupcake du jour in every box! The only thing more disconcerting would be seeing “Freedom fries” on the menu. Are we overthinking this? Perhaps. But Balthazar has always been a grown-up’s restaurant, and as Troy Patterson noted in Slate yesterday, “To consume [a cupcake] conspicuously is to participate in the most frou-frou form of regressive behavior the hospitality industry has yet devised.” Mr. Patterson, the frosting apocalypse is indeed upon us.

Sad Moments: Balthazar Introduces the ‘Cupcake du Jour’