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Seattle Pastry Chefs’ Top Sweet Spots
Where Seattle's finest pastry chefs get sugared up
This article originally appeared in the December 2016 issue of Seattle magazine.
Carrie Mashaney (picutred above)
Chef and pastry chef, Mamnoon (Capitol Hill, 1508 Melrose Ave.; 206.906.9606; mamnoonrestaurant.com)
A rare chef talented in the ways of both savory and sweet, Mashaney rose to Top Chef fame in season 11; now, you can find her crafting beautiful Pavlovas and plating mezze at this critically acclaimed Middle Eastern restaurant.
What is your favorite…
Ice cream? Kurt Farm Shop’s (Capitol Hill, 1424 11th Ave.; kurtwoodfarms.com/kurt-farm-shop) rose.
Cake? I don’t really eat cake, but my favorite would be anything with buttercream frosting.
Cookie? Wandering Goose, chocolate chip. It has a good balance of salty/sweet going on.
Breakfast pastry? Bakery Nouveau’s kugelhopf (a Bundt-shaped, yeasted dough). It’s light as air, with a crunchy sugar coating and not too sweet.
Plated dessert? The best, most recent dessert I’ve had—besides my own!—was at Spinasse (Capitol Hill, 1531 14th Ave.; 206.251.7673; spinasse.com). It was a grilled peach with oatmeal gelato and cinnamon milk.
What sort of sweet treats is Seattle missing? Babka!
Renee Bolstad
Pastry chef, Revel, Joule and Trove (relayrestaurantgroup.com)
To match the bold, Asian-influenced flavors at Rachel Yang and Seif Chirchi’s popular eateries, Bolstad comes up with inventive takes on classic desserts—look for miso, lychee, lemongrass—plus the extremely Instagram-able parfaits at Trove’s ice cream truck.
What is your favorite…
Ice cream? Other than my own, anything Matt Bumpas [of Sweet Bumpas] (206.719.0625; sweetbumpas.com) makes!
Cake? I can get down on the carrot cake from Safeway (multiple locations; safeway.com). My first job was in the Safeway bakery, and it brings back many great memories.
Cookie? I had a chocolate peanut butter cookie at the Wandering Goose (Capitol Hill, 403 15th Ave. E; 206.323.9938; thewanderinggoose.com) that was out of this world. It was served warm, and it was the perfect balance of soft and gooey.
Breakfast pastry? Anything from Bakery Nouveau, particularly the kouign-amann. The layers of butter and sugar—does it get any better than that?
Plated dessert? When I was at the [StarChefs’] Rising Star event last year, Junko Mine [of Cafe Juanita] had a delightful plate of ricotta and honey and a thin crostini of a chocolate bread. It was perfectly balanced, and I love it when bread gets incorporated in a plated dessert.
What sort of sweet treats is Seattle missing? I think more shops that serve more traditional desserts from their cultural heritage. I need more aebleskiver in my life!
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