Thursday, March 21, will be a day to remember for Eclair Bakery. As it was made clear by the balloons with the words “Grand Opening” hanging on the walls, Stéphane Pourrez’s new colorful pastry shop opened on 53rd Street. Customers crowded around the display cases filled with eclairs and other delicious pastries take turns thanking the chef for his creations.
Pourrez certainly has his fan club: he has been serving eclairs to the neighborhood since 2013. Feeling cramped in his first Eclair Bakery, he decided to acquire the neighboring, more spacious room to set up this second pastry shop. Decorated in warm colors and with photos that evoke France, this extension of Eclair Bakery has tables to seat about forty people. The first room has been transformed into a large kitchen to produce more small sweet delicacies. “It’s day and night. This new space is bigger, more beautiful, better lit,” says the Frenchman.
The offerings are the same. As in his first establishment, Stéphane Pourrez offers twelve types of traditional (including vanilla and chocolate) and exotic eclairs (including matcha, cheesecake, almond caramel, dulce de leche). You can also find pastries and a battalion of various sweets (including canéles and macarons) made on site. “We have always made very fresh, high-quality French and American products. From the beginning of the first pastry shop, we have had very good feedback from customers. Some have been coming every day for the past five years.”
Success is all the more delicious for the pastry chef because he decided to make an eclair-focused bakery just based on an intuition. “Five years ago, it was beginning to be a trend in France. It was in its earliest stages. There was no one on the eclair market here at the time,” he recalls.
In addition to his selection of pastries, Pourrez wants to develop a lunch offer in this expanded location to attract customers from the offices in nearby Midtown. He plans to serve crêpes, quiches, croque-monsieurs and ice cream.
