When Maury Rubin opened the City Bakery 25 years ago, there was no pretzel croissant, or chocolate-white-chocolate-chip cookie, or raspberry-bran muffin. At that time, the focus was “incredibly, strictly French,” says Rubin, speaking of his riffs on pastries he learned during a yearlong apprenticeship in Paris. These included a roster of tarts made with a simultaneous reverence for French tradition (in the form of a classic pâte sucrée tart shell) and a renunciation of it (no eggs or gelatin in the custards; unusual flavor combinations; forthright naming conventions). For the next five months, to mark the bakery’s silver anniversary, Rubin will excavate these recipes from his archives and rotate them through his repertoire. The Orange Tart Made Out of Apples was on the opening-day menu, but according to Rubin, who considers it a symbol of the bakery’s modern, whimsical, Greenmarket-linked approach, “it hasn’t aged one bit.”
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On the anniversary menu at the City Bakery; $7.50; 3 W. 18th St., nr. Fifth Ave.; 212-336-1414
Photo: Bobby Doherty/New York Magazine
*This article appears in the October 19, 2015 issue of New York Magazine.
