Midtown Lunch

The other day as I was running errands on 5th Ave I noticed a sign in the Michel Cluizel shop advertising a Parisian breakfast of pastry and coffee or tea for $5 from 8am to 10:30am. When I noticed pain au chocolate was one of the options I was sold.

You can get a croissant, pain au chocolate (aka a chocolate filled croissant), brioche, raisin brioche or almond brioche with coffee, cafe au lait, or tea. As I was paying I noticed on their counter menu that you can upgrade to hot chocolate or a ham and cheese croissant for $1 more.

I’ve never been to France so I can’t compare this to the real deal in Paris, but I have had some excellent pain au chocolate at Almondine in Brooklyn.

This pain au chocolate was fine. I’ll admit that I ate the whole thing. But I’ve had better. With this croissant the chocolate batons (that’s what my Fundamentals of Classic Pastry Techniques book called them) were not as well distributed as they could have been–the chocolate ended up together rather than evenly spread out and the batons remained rather solid. The cafe au lait was also just fine. It came from one of those high end little pouch espresso machines. The breakfast combo came with a piece of your choice of milk or dark chocolate.

For $5 I wouldn’t seek out this particular combo again. The almond croissant looked quite tasty and if I weren’t allergic to nuts I’d give that a try. If I had seen that you could upgrade to hot chocolate for $1 more, I totally would have done that. While it makes for a pricey breakfast, if you have a sweet tooth, Michel Cluizel is among the most famous names in chocolate and their hot chocolate itself is $5, so $6 for hot chocolate plus pastry might make for a nice once and a while special treat

Michel Cluizel, 584 5th Avenue (btw 47+48th), 646-415-9126