After
touring around Kirkwood Missouri to check out a number of homes and other
buildings listed in the National Register of Historic Places, Bonnie and Bill
decided that they’d take us to a local spot for an afternoon treat…
This is
the Nathaniel Reid Bakery on Manchester Road in Kirkwood. It’s located in the small strip shopping
center and, if you didn’t know what you were looking for, you might just drive
on by… Even the store front is understated.
This is
an overview of the inside of the bakery.
It’s straightforward and simple with a few seats along a counter by the
front windows.
As the
saying goes, you can’t judge a book by its cover… Nathaniel Reid is the owner
and chef of the bakery. He graduated
from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris with a Grand Diploma in Culinary and Pastry
Arts. In 2012 Dessert Professional Magazine
named him as one of the Top 10 Pastry Chefs in the USA. He has received a plethora of other awards as
well.
Most
recently, Reid served as the pastry chef at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in St.
Louis. He has also served in similar
positions at the St. Regis Hotel in Dana Point California as well as the
Michelin 3-star Joel Robuchon Restaurant and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, both in
Las Vegas Nevada.
As these
photos of the bakery display cases demonstrate, the variety of available treats
is a bit mind boggling!
Customers
can choose from selections of breakfast pastries, sweet snacks, sandwiches,
fancy pastries, chocolates and confections, salads, macarons, pound cakes,
meringues, quiche, jams and beverages.
Hopefully
I’ve identified our choices correctly… This is a luscious blueberry cream
cheese Danish. ($3.50)
This was
the Chocolate Almond Croissant. ($3.75)
…and this
one was the Financier Almond Cake. ($3.25)
I thought
that my treat was the most unusual of all.
The “Bostock” was a special menu item. ($3.50) Basically, this is a
sweet moist almond covered slice of French toast and it was terrific!
I had to
look up my special treat on the Internet. The Bostock
is a buttery day-old brioche roll that is sliced into thick portions. Then its soaked in an almond simple syrup and
generously spread with frangipane almond cream.
In this case, almonds coated the outside. In the oven, the syrup caramelizes the edges
and the almond paste forms a crunchy top crusts while the middle turns rich and
custard-like. Wow!
We were
all very happy with our afternoon delights!
The Nathaniel Reid Bakery is located at 11243 Manchester Road in
Kirkwood Missouri. Phone:
314-858-1019. The Bakery’s website can
be found at http://www.nrbakery.com/. If you’re into self-torture, there are
several photos of the goodies available on the website!
Just
click on any of the photos to enlarge them…
Thanks
for stopping by for a visit!
Take
Care, Big Daddy Dave
Looks phenomenal...
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