Francois Payard Bakery

Francois Payard Bakery

210 Murray Street 

New York City, NY 10282

(212) 566-8300

Howard and I aren't strangers to Francois Payard, our first visit being his Las Vegas location for brunch and later on for late night munchies. But remember, we were here on a macaron tour, and we've never tried Payard's macarons before. He has multiple locations scattered around New York City and we went to visit the Tribeca location.

This was a tiny shop across from Shake Shack, but don't be fooled, the line here is just as long. Workers from all of the offices nearby were popping in for breakfast, lunch, or cravings. Or maybe they were picking up celebration cakes. They had everything from oatmeal cranberry cookies and flourless chocolate walnut cookies to tarts, éclair, and roulés.

All of the desserts here looked beautiful, they were bright in colours with sparkly finishes. Howard almost had to hold me back. They even had macaron ice cream sandwiches in pistachio raspberry, coconut mango, chocolate sorbet, and strawberry cheesecake flavours.

We finally narrowed it down and tried the green apple honey and passion fruit macarons. I was so excited that I ate the green apple honey before snapping a photo, but you can see that we did originally have it in the paper bag from the cover photo above.

The green apple honey macaron was well made but while we could taste a hint of honey, but green apple flavour felt very artificial. It almost reminded me of apple Jolly Ranchers. The passion fruit macaron was also filled with chocolate which over powered the fruit's flavour, but it was still a good combination of flavours.

Since the bakery is so close to the Nelson A. Rockefeller Park, we wandered over to admire the waterfront.

I bet the Statue of Liberty would like some macarons . . .

Takahachi Bakery

Takahachi Bakery

25 Murray Street

New York City, NY 10007

(212) 791-5550

Despite having visited New York on an annual basis, we love that there's so many neighbourhoods and places to explore in Manhattan. We never stopped by this little corner before and I wish with all my might that something like this would pop up in our home town.

Takahachi Bakery should be on your list of bakeries to visit the next time you're in New York City. They have a great combination of sweet and savoury items available.

Similar to some of the bakeries in Toronto, you can grab a tray, tongs, and pick up the items you wanted. They also had a grab-and-go counter for quick lunches, beverages, or snacks.

At the back of the bakery, they have an area where you can sit and enjoy your purchases while looking on at the bakers through the big windows at the back. They're making everything fresh!

And they have macarons, so they were a must-visit for our macaron tour! We were so full from lunch, so I told Howard we would only get one from each bakery to try. Err... that suggestion went out the window pretty fast.

I couldn't resist! They had lots of our favourite flavours. Black sesame, green tea, passion fruit, and honey ginger. We liked every single one of them. There wasn't a miss in terms of the flavours of the macarons. Each shell had the nice and light meringue cake interior - no hollowness here! The fillings were delicious and were not overly sweet either.