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I got a Kouign Amann this morning at Alliance Bakery in Wicker Park, and it was excellent!

This is not intended to knock Floriole. Alliance and Floriole are both outstanding bakeries, two of the very best in the entire city.

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"we must all understand that we're not all going to agree on everything, so let's just accept it -- hell, let's cherish it -- and move on." - ronnie_suburban

At last night's GNR dinner, Sandra and Mathieu Holl from Floriole indicated the Kouign Amman's availability may not have an end date.

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-Mary

Me: please can i have a wholewheat loaf sliced.

Man at cash register: we dont slice bread (!!!)

I understand that this was an inconvenience for you but I have to say that in my own little overly-fussy world, Floriole just went up a notch. Knowing they don't slice bread makes them even more credible as a serious bakery in my view.

For a number of reasons, I never buy sliced bread.

=R=

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I just wanna live until I gotta die. I know I ain't perfect but God knows I try. --Todd Snider

Twitter: ronniesuburban

Bon Appetit has named their baguette one of the 10 best in the country http://www.bonappetit.com/blogsandforum ... erica.html

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Ava-"If you get down and out, just get in the kitchen and bake a cake."- Jean Strickland

Horto In Urbs- Falling in love with Urban Vegetable Gardening

I guess i was lucky to grow up in a country where "serious" bakeries would slice bread for you.

Clearly. (lol @ myself for being so fussy)

=R=

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I just wanna live until I gotta die. I know I ain't perfect but God knows I try. --Todd Snider

Twitter: ronniesuburban

For all I know, the reason Floriole doesn't slice is because they don't have room for a slicer. I really don't know. But as a person who spent a number of years baking naturally-leavened loaves, the idea of cutting one of those loaves on a machine seems entirely wrong to me. So, a bakery that doesn't slice is alluring to me.

=R=

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I just wanna live until I gotta die. I know I ain't perfect but God knows I try. --Todd Snider

Twitter: ronniesuburban

Plus, if you slice it, you have to put it in a plastic bag (or eat it very fast). Putting a crusty loaf of break into a plastic bag turns it into a soft mess. Not what it was supposed to be.

I can't believe I'm hearing such effete protests from the guys about bread. Putting bread through a slicer does necessarily not ruin it, and years of experience of eating sliced bread shows that putting it in a plastic bag it does not turn it into a soft mess (unless you're storing it in the sun or in a humid place, in which case, bag or not, your bread is toast, so to speak). It will go stale faster, but if you eat it quickly, it's okay. I don't know why Floriole doesn't have a slicer - maybe they're afraid of worker's comp claims. But that it's a show of seriousness on the baker's part? I would be sorry to hear that it was.

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Local Beet

I believe Red Hen Bakery slices their bread.

Hope that helps,

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Ava-"If you get down and out, just get in the kitchen and bake a cake."- Jean Strickland

Horto In Urbs- Falling in love with Urban Vegetable Gardening

Glad you posted this here instead of twitter. I seem to remember you were a major bread snob (and I mean that as a complement!). Join the effeteers! I bake a lot of bread, most of it naturally leavened. These crusty loaves keep for a while uncut. Once you cut into it, moisture begins to escape. It is best to store it in a paper bag, which won't trap in the moisture and will allow the crust to retain its crustiness. Putting it in plastic traps in the moisture, raises the humidity, and the crust goes from crunchy to soft fairly quickly. (Incidentally, some bakers like to let their dough rise in a garbage bag precisely because they want the humidity.)

But - presumably for the same reason - doesn't that make it go stale faster than in plastic?

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"we must all understand that we're not all going to agree on everything, so let's just accept it -- hell, let's cherish it -- and move on." - ronnie_suburban

The bread will dry out faster in paper than in plastic. So, yes. But...good quality bread doesn't get dry that fast...many prefer crusty bread that is a little on the dry side to bread that was once crusty but has turned soft...and there are a lot of good things you can do with dry bread (toast it, make a bread salad, etc).

Finally made it to Floriole last week - it had been high on my list for a while, but it was a little out of the way on most of my wanders.

I enjoyed a grilled cheeses sandwich with arugula and a little side salad, along with some fresh lemonade. It was a warm but blustery day, and the light airy room and food selection gave me a nice summery feeling, even if it did not quite feel that way outside.

Sandwich was undeniably wonderful. Nice bread, properly toasted, melted cheese had a little tang to step up to the arugula, and to say this is not a kid's sandwich. The side salad was impeccable - light vinaigrette on perfect little greens.

Then I took home a baguette, two K Amann, an almond croissant and a regular croissant. The K. Amann were wonderfully decadent - sweet buttery perfection. As the Bride surprised me and did not step up to eat the second one, I had it around a day later and played with how best to eat it. It was fine as is (the butteriness offsetting any early tendency to get stale), but a brief visit to the microwave, say 5-12 seconds, was also enjoyable - imparting a little warmth and softening the butter, without harming the crust.

I also liked the baguette a lot - nice, airy crumb and a good chewy crust. I was expecting the crust to be a little crisper than it was, but that does not detract from the quality. I did find there to be a strange, sweet note to the crust, almost cinnamony to my palate. Not sure where that comes from, but I got something similar from the plain croissant. It was not unpleasant or off in any way, just surprising. Has anyone else noticed this? Could it be something from the flour?

After what I had read, I found the croissants a bit disappointing. They were tasty and good, but I have this ideal, a vision of the perfect croissant, and they missed that target. The perfect croissant is an infinite number of perfect flaky layers gradually evolving into a center of slightly chewy dough. Floriole's are larger and less flaky, following more of a crust and crumb model than my ideal. Not unpleasant, but not following the classic ideal. I did like a lot of things about the almond croissant - nice almond cream, a generous but not excessive amount of slivered almonds, and properly, but not overly, sweet.

Lots of other tempting items on offer, so I will be back soon to continue my exploration.

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d
Retired, gone fishing, and exploring my curmudgeon within

Since my earlier post in this topic, I've continued to visit Floriole on a regular basis. IMHO they have the best breads and pastries in the entire city. AFAIK they are also the only bakery in the city where you can buy caneles (pictured above). Another item that is unique to Floriole in Chicago is the miche, a type of bread with a really tasty crust. They sell them in two sizes; the large one pictured below is 11 inches long!

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"we must all understand that we're not all going to agree on everything, so let's just accept it -- hell, let's cherish it -- and move on." - ronnie_suburban

actually, miche is a style of bread that's available just about everywhere. Bakeries in Chicago that call it miche include Little Goat, Peerless, PQM, La Fournette and Panera Bread. Places that carry the same thing but call it something else, such as "country sourdough" include Fox and Obel, Trader Joes, Whole Foods and surely many more.

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...defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions." Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

Fuckerberg on Food

I've been to most of those places and I've never seen anything even remotely like the miche they sell at Floriole. There may be other places that use that word, but the bread itself is totally different. Even more so with those "country sourdough" loaves, which are an entirely different kind of bread, different in appearance as well as taste. Totally different.

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"we must all understand that we're not all going to agree on everything, so let's just accept it -- hell, let's cherish it -- and move on." - ronnie_suburban

The one at Floriole doesn't usually look like the one you have pictured above either. Yours is either burnt, or something was done to alter the picture to make it look that way. It's normally got a quite-dark crust, but nearly as black as pictured in your post. The ones at the places I noted above do look quite similar to the way Floriole's normally looks - you might need to look harder. As far as taste and texture go, my favorites are Peerless and La Fournette, with PQM close behind. Floriole's is pretty good too.

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...defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions." Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

Fuckerberg on Food

It's possible that the lighting and angle makes the outer part of the bread look darker than usual, but as you note, it's a dark-crusted bread. The top of the bread in that photo is the way it always looks.

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"we must all understand that we're not all going to agree on everything, so let's just accept it -- hell, let's cherish it -- and move on." - ronnie_suburban

Here's a link to a picture of it from floriole's own website: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hellokitty893112/6708667825/sizes/l/in/set-72157628897158303/

That's what it normally looks like. Similar color, shape, style as some of the others I mentioned. It's not a unique kind of bread.

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...defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions." Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

Fuckerberg on Food

Floriole also makes a decent gateau Basque (no custard or jam inside, alas, but better than the version at Naha), which is difficult to find in Chicago.

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The Windy Foodie
http://windyfoodie.com

What's inside if there's no custard or jam inside? I thought gateau Basque had to have something inside, but I could be wrong.

I think you're right. When I was in France, I almost always saw custard inside gateau basque (and on one occasion, jam). But Floriole's version didn't have either. It was just the cake with almond pieces. Thankfully, the batter was more moist than Naha's version (which also didn't have anything inside). But if you feel disappointed for the lack of filling, I must say I share the same sentiment.

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The Windy Foodie
http://windyfoodie.com

I believe the filling of Floriole's consists primarily of almond paste.

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"we must all understand that we're not all going to agree on everything, so let's just accept it -- hell, let's cherish it -- and move on." - ronnie_suburban

That's incorrect. It's pastry cream. It's a filling, but it mixes in with the cake itself in a way that makes the overall package seem creamier, but it's not distinguishable in the way people typically think of a cake filling.

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...defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions." Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

Fuckerberg on Food

Naha's gateau basque doesn't have a filling? I could have sworn when I had it more than a year ago, it most definitely did have a warm almond cream filling. Maybe they've changed it?

Basque cake is made with pastry cream in the middle, and as noted, it melds with the cake - you don't get a distinct layer i the middle. There's no reason Naha couldn't have an almond filling, but classically, it's pastry cream.

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Leek
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When I had it last year, I did not find cream inside.
http://windyfoodie.com/naha/

It might be possible that since I was used to seeing a lot more filling in gateau Basque that I somehow overlooked the cream inside (although that would mean that there must be really little cream or it was mixed as suggested by the forumite above, since I was actually analyzing my dessert carefully).

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The Windy Foodie
http://windyfoodie.com

Another place that makes gateau Basque is St. Roger Abbey, in Westfield Hawthorn Center in north suburban Vernon Hills (not to be confused with Mundelein ). I like Floriole's better, though.

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"we must all understand that we're not all going to agree on everything, so let's just accept it -- hell, let's cherish it -- and move on." - ronnie_suburban