Battle of the Chocolate-Filled French Breakfast Pastries: Falai Panetteria vs. Pain d'Avignon
When Falai Panetteria opened on Clinton Street in 2006, it brought the then-novel concept of French pastries to the Lower East Side. Four years later, Pain d'Avignon opened in the Essex Street Market, giving the neighborhood a second source for croissants and loaves of meticulously crafted bread. Both bakeries sell a version of one of France's great contributions to the breakfast universe, the chocolate-filled pastry. Falai does a chocolate croissant, while Pain d'Avignon makes a pain au chocolat, the croissant's cuboid cousin. Both varieties use a leavened dough similar to puff pastry, and both have won over multitudes with their ingenious all-in-one packaging of large quantities of butter and chocolate. 
That's Pain d'Avignon's on the left, Falai's on the right.
Curious to know which would best satisfy a morning chocolate craving, we decided to wage a Battle of the Dishes, Lower East Side chocolate-filled French pastry edition.
First up was Pain d'Avignon's pain du chocolat. The $2.50 pastry was light, flaky, and tasted of butter without being greasy. It enclosed a narrow tube of bittersweet chocolate, which ran through its length and protruded alluringly from both ends. It was neat, tidy, and restrained -- a chocolate breakfast pastry for someone more interested in breakfast than dessert. While it was a little bit on the ascetic side, it was satisfying on its own terms, and beautifully crafted, so much so that we almost felt guilty tearing it apart. Almost.
Pain d'Avignon's innards.
Location Info
Write Comment
Email to Friend
Print Article
