How long would you wait for a Michelin-star treat? Even if it was vegan?
Madison Squares — made without dairy butter, eggs and usual staple ingredients for yummy baked goods — are the latest pastry to take NYC by storm, drawing lines even longer than the great cronut craze.
The plant-based delicacies are a “new take on the croissant,” Eleven Madison Park’s executive pastry chef Laura Cronin told The Post. Each is sold for $8 at the three-Michelin-star seasonal Bake It Nice pop-up.
After a wildly popular winter pop-up, it’s back for the spring season on April 19, The Post can exclusively reveal.
Cronin and her team took the flakiness, the soft interior and layers of a croissant and turned them into something new, with a delicate and fluffy interior and a crisp and caramelized outside, which she achieves by cross-laminating the dough and baking solo in rings.
The pop-up, located outside Eleven Madison Park’s restaurant on Madison Avenue, previously drew lines wrapped around the block, extending to Park Avenue. Cronin is expecting just as many people hoping to get their hands on one of these flaky goods this time around, too.
“It was incredible to see how excited people were,” she shared.
Previous pop-ups for the coveted pastries drew both New Yorkers and customers from all over the world, including India and Spain, Cronin said.
On one such Saturday in November, Amy Saunders and Anne Marie Janeway queued hours before the pop-up opened at 7:30 a.m. and 8 a.m., respectively.
Saunders, 29, had tried to come another time but was too late. Having arrived at 9:30 a.m., she joined the line that wrapped to Park Avenue, only to be told they ran out by the time she got to the corner of 25th Street and Madison Avenue.
Janeway said she’s waited multiple times for Madison Squares.
“This is my third time waiting. It’s that good,” the 54-year-old told The Post, adding that her friend who has lived in Manhattan for 35 years never waits in line for anything — and she’s come back a second time for the viral squares.
New York City often sees long lines for viral foods, but it’s rare to see such commotion over something vegan. In fact, many can’t even tell they’re plant-based when they taste it.
“I’m not vegan, but some people that are will get a high-quality pastry,” Saunders noted.
Cronin uses different types of plant-based butter — a combination of Tourlami butter and the restaurant’s house-made sunflower butter — to make the undetectably vegan pastries so good.
“The perfect croissant is a delicate balance of crisp, golden layers on the outside and a soft, buttery interior that melts in your mouth with each bite,” she shared. “Every bite should be a symphony of flakiness, crispiness and decadence, which is my goal.”
Eleven Madison Park transitioned to a fully plant-based menu in 2021 post-pandemic — and for a pastry chef, not being able to use eggs and dairy was “pretty daunting” at the beginning.
“It took a lot of trial and error and experimenting with different ingredients to achieve the flavors and textures that we were looking for,” Cronin shared. “It has been a great learning experience and opened me up to a world of ingredients and flavors I may have otherwise never used.”
And she’s certainly tried out a lot of flavors. Every week, Cronin introduces a new flavor for the Bake It Nice pop-up, and while the exact flavors for this rendition remain a surprise, foodies can expect bright, bold combinations that capture the essence of spring.
Previous fan-favorites have included strawberry rhubarb, orange blossom and chocolate pretzel praline. Last fall, the pastry chef combined nutty flavors like hazelnut, golden sesame and chestnuts with autumnal produce like apples and pumpkins.
Variety draws people back, too. “They change the flavors every week, I don’t want to miss out,” Janeway said of why she keeps coming back.
Though the pastries come from a fine-dining Michelin-star restaurant, Bake It Nice has allowed Eleven Madison Park to “connect with people in a more casual environment” — especially people who haven’t been able to dine at the main restaurant, Cronin said.
“It’s a Michelin restaurant, and yes you’re waiting on a long line, but it’s a bit more accessible than having to get a reservation and pay dine-in prices,” Saunders shared.
The Bake It Nice pop-up will return April 19 and May 10 for the spring season with new flavors and offerings. The pop-ups will begin at 11 a.m. while supplies last.
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