Gotham Digest

Finding a delicious French macaron in New York City is nearly impossible. Why? They are not as popular as coconut macaroons, and the ones I find usually taste terrible. So, Robyn and I set out on a journey to find the best macaron in New York City.

A good macaron should be sweet but not cloyingly so, have a good ratio of cookie to filling, and the cookie has to have a thin, crispy crust with a melt-in-your mouth texture.

Our first stop was Silver Moon Bakery. They only have two flavors, Almond Chocolate and Chocolate for $2.50 each.

The almond chocolate macaron had a thinner cookie than the chocolate macaron. It was large and very yellow in color. The chocolate ganache was not exactly superb chocolate, but it was smooth. The cookie had a thin, crispy crust on the outside, but was too dry and crumbly to have that melt in your mouth feel. The ratio of cookie to ganache was about 1:1, which is the desired ratio.

The chocolate macaron was thicker than the almond and shorter in diameter. The macaron was not as crusty as the almond but was richer. The ganache was exactly the same. Both macarons are fine and better than Bouchon Bakery’s terribly chewy macarons. They didn’t “blow my mind” but they weren’t awful macarons either.

Next up is Georgia’s Bake Shop.

Starting with the chocolate macaron…

The chocolate was decent; nothing remarkable. The cookie was fine. The chocolate flavor of the cookie and the ganache was present but it wasn’t tantalizing on the tongue.  I wasn’t seduced by this macaron.

The pistachio macaron (pictured above) had the same texture of all the other macarons: thin, with a crispy crust and the shell was slightly dry, sweet, and crumbly. The pistachio filling, however, was not to my liking. It lacked authentic pistachio flavor and was as sweet as cupcake frosting.  It reminded me of vanilla icing with too much confectioners’ sugar. To the sugar lover, this is your macaron. This is not my macaron.

The cinnamon macaron was an interesting flavor. The cookie texture was good but the filling was too overpowered by the cinnamon. My tongue got a wave of cinnamon flavor which washed over my entire palate. It’s a nice idea, but they need to tone down the cinnamon a few notches.

The jam filling of the strawberry macaron was sweet, but not as bad as the pistachio filling. The cookie was a bit crustier than I would have liked.

A box of five macarons cost $7, which is $1.40 each. I do not think $1.40 a macaron is justified by something that is 1 1/2 inches in diameter. I would definitely pass on these mediocre macarons if I had the choice to buy them again.

La Maison du Chocolat was our third stop. We went to the Rockefeller Center location.

Our strategy was to buy a few macarons of different flavors (the small are $2 each and the large are $5). Robyn bought the Quito (chocolate), Guyaquil (Vanilla and Chocolate), and the Rigoletto (Caramel and chocolate) macarons, while I bought the Salvador (Raspberry and Chocolate) and the Romeo (Coffee and Chocolate) macarons.

I started with my macarons. The Romeo macaron, was wonderfully rich in flavor and texture. The coffee flavor was bold, robust but not at all bitter; the chocolate was smooth, dark (tasting about 70 - 72%), and creamy. I like this macaron; it’s a great macaron for the coffee lover.

The Salvador Macaron was fine.  I’m not a big fan of pairing chocolate and raspberries in the first place. However, the raspberry flavor was vibrant and tart.  The sweetness of the filling was balanced by the chocolate ganache.

Robyn’s macarons: I started with the Guayaquil, the chocolate vanilla flavored macaron. The macaron was vanilla and the ganache filling was chocolate. It was a wonderful combination but once I tasted the chocolate, the vanilla was an afterthought.  If they had added vanilla to the ganache, to accentuate the vanilla in the cookie, I would have liked this more.

The Rigoletto Macaron, was unique. The caramel was burnt with a slight hint of salinity for contrast. It’s a good macaron but I did not like the flavor very much. The caramel was a few degrees too burnt for me and the bitterness did not make me happy.

And finally the Quito Macaron,. This is a dark chocolate lover’s dream of a macaron. It’s intense dark chocolate ganache with a dark chocolate macaron cookie. I like this one for being unadulteratedly chocolatey.

All of the macaron cookies are good.

The last destination for the day was Almondine Bakery located in Dumbo, Brooklyn.

We first tried the chocolate and peanut-butter macaron. This is an innovative, very American flavor for a macaron. The filling was roasted peanut butter, with a chocolate macaron shell. It was wonderful. If this was done in a French style, it would have been a hazelnut praline with caramelized banana…or something like that. Anyway, it was delicious and one of my favorites from the box.

Next is the apricot…

The apricot filling was too sweet, once the macaron hit my tongue all I could taste was a hint of apricot and everything else screamed SUGAR! They need to adjust the filling in this recipe and cut the sugar in half. It’s almost unbearable.

The strawberry macaron, like the apricot, had filling that was too sweet. In Almondine’s kitchen all of the jam filled macarons are like this. However, the macaron shell was melt-in-your-mouth goodness.

The lemon macaron looked like a miniature crooked tiered layer cake; it was adorable. The lemon macaron fared a lot better than its jam filled counterparts. The lemon filling was bright, tart, slightly sweet and creamy, with the soft cookie offsetting the crust. It’s really good. This is my other favorite from this box.

Like Georgia’s Bake Shop’s pistachio macaron, the filling is like cake icing. I don’t understand why these bakeries are not creating a true pistachio flavored filling. This is a bust in my book.

Of the places I visited, I would say that La Maison du Chocolat prevailed as the best macaron in NYC. All of their macaron flavors are consistently bold on the palate, not too sweet, and their cookie shell has some structure, and are not super soft.

Addresses:

Silver Moon Bakery
2740 Broadway (at 105th Street)
New York, NY 10025

Georgia’s Bake Shop
2418 Broadway (at 89th Street)
New York, NY 10024

La Maison du Chocolat
Visited: 30 Rockefeller Center Plaza (on 49th Street)
New York, NY 10012

Other location: 1018 Madison Avenue
(between 78th & 79th Street)
New York, NY 10021

Almondine Bakery
85 Water Street (near Main Street)
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Originally Posted at The Wandering Eater