North Jersey's new modern pastry shops

Photos: North Jersey's modern pastries

Michael Volpe knew what he did not want his new Ramsey bakery to be: "That mom-and-pop place with a counter with cookies stacked up five feet high. You don't know how old they are. Every place has the exact same flavors."

Instead, his month-old L'Arte della Pasticceria offers sleek cases of Italian breads, artisan pastries and gelato — along with classic semolina loaves, cannolis and amaretti cookies, there are creations such as a "cannoli-clair" and biscotti in nontraditional flavors such as lemon pistachio and chocolate chip.

In Englewood, Tomer Zilkha envisioned a casual French patisserie that evoked the serenity and graciousness of those in France. "What we offer here is an escape," Zilkha said of his Patisserie Florentine, which opened in June.

Welcome to North Jersey's new modern Italian and French bakeries — upscale, sunny spots with a case of refined pastries painstakingly made from scratch in-house, along with room to sit, light meals and an atmosphere more relaxed than a full-service restaurant.

A case in point: The high-profile Sook Pastry in Ridgewood, which opened in 2011 by Keum Sook Park, an alum of the benchmark Payard Patisserie in Manhattan. Park thought she was simply opening a French pastry shop, but her sandwiches and soups helped transform the café into a popular ladies-lunch destination. To keep up with the demand for light meals, Park added more savory crepes and omelette-filled croissants, though she still has lines for her almond croissants, brioche, pain au chocolat and fruit tarts.

A much bigger operation was unveiled in Wayne late last year by Italian baker Giancarlo Palazzone. Its name, Palazzone 1960, is a tribute to the year his parents arrived in the United States and opened Remos Bakery on Valley Road in Clifton. They returned to Italy in the 1970s and continued to run bakeries, where Palazzone grew up learning the traditional methods. Later, he launched a company that made contemporary versions of the traditional sugared almonds.

But then he decided to bring his family's business back to the United States, and now he serves more than 100 varieties of authentic pastries from an expansive spot near the Willowbrook Mall. The impressive row of gold and silver trays includes both famous and lesser-known regional Italian sweets, including fresh cannolis with house-made shells, ciambelle (thick Italian doughnuts), ricotta pear cake, torta caprese (a gluten-free cake made only of almond flour and chocolate) and diplomatica (a light Italian napoleon).

Customers can come in for a cappuccino and a pastry, or lunch from a small menu that includes prosciutto de parma paninis, handmade gnocchi and spaghetti with San Marzano tomato sauce. Palazzone scorns artificial flavoring — anything that is lemon- or raspberry-flavored actually contains those fruits — and decries shortcuts that have compromised the quality of baked goods. "Everything is natural. Everything is very simple. This is Italian food," he said. He sells his pastries to more than 20 restaurants and stores, but declined to name them.

Volpe, a Culinary Institute of America-trained pastry chef who ate his way through Italian bakeries while preparing to open L'Arte della Pasticceria, also sees himself as a culinary ambassador. "We feel like Italian pastries are undervalued. All of the best, fanciest places are always French," Volpe said. With the popularity of Italian food and wine, "we want to show people that the pastries are just as good as the pasta."

So far, Volpe's customers are snapping up the lemon, chocolate and pignoli tarts and the rainbow cookies. Volpe is already preparing for Christmastime, when he wants to offer strufoli (fried balls of dough with honey), fig cookies and fresh panettone ("people are so used to the boxed stuff that's 20 years old").

At Patisserie Florentine in Englewood, Zilkha installed an Astoria manual-brewing espresso machine and makes French pastries the way he was trained in France and in Manhattan, with the high-butterfat European-style butter Plugra. But the native Israeli says his croissants have something of a Mediterranean influence — they contain 30 percent less butter than a classic French recipe, resulting in a slightly crispier exterior.

He scorns almond paste when making his signature almond croissant, which is less sweet and nuttier than most versions.

It's already hard to get a seat on weekends for brunch, and by popular demand, Zilkha has already started booking small parties for prix fixe, farmers' market, five-course dinners. His "petit bistro" is "not too formal, no white tablecloths." He simply wants people to feel comfortable while eating quality food. "We're keeping it approachable," he said.

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