Éclair lovers, rejoice: There’s a bakery slated to open soon on New York’s Lower East Side that will serves all éclairs, all the time. Did I just make your week or what? Me, I'm thrilled. The only thing better than one éclair is an endless supply of éclairs, and that's exactly what we'll get with this place. Yum.
According to Gothamist, Les Jardins de la Duchesse will be opening up shop on Orchard Street sometime in the next three weeks. Its chef, Antoine Pelhate, apprenticed in France starting at the age of 15 and has been working at a Michelen two-star restaurant in Switzerland for the past year. Although I’ll admit that I’m most excited about the sweet options, which range from your standard chocolate and vanilla varieties to flavors like lemon, yuzu, and ginger and pistachio and raspberry, I’m thoroughly intrigued by the section on the menu marked “savory éclairs.” I’ve never had a savory éclair — but I’ve also never met anything stuffed into a pastry shell that I haven’t liked, so I’m pretty sure I’ll be a fan. I mean, consider this: A bacon-wrapped goat cheese éclair. That’s three of my favorite things, all in one go. Awesome? Awesome.
The éclair-centric spot is just one in a long line of extremely specialized cafes and restaurants that have grown popular in the U.S. Recently we’ve seen an all-Nutella restaurant open; eateries exist that are devoted solely to mac and cheese and to grilled cheese; and someone even just opened a fried fair foods restaurant. But there are still a few niche food restaurants out there I’d like to see, so if someone could get on these other options I’ve dreamed up ASAP, that’d be great:
1. Drunk Foods Diner
This place would be magical. Imagine all of the best drunk foods from around the world, all available at weird hours for anyone to consume. Is Drunk You salivating yet?
2. Fried Dough Restaurant
By which I mean any kind of fried dough — any kind at all. Funnel cakes, donuts, fried Mars bars, churros, whatever — they’d all be here, both sweet and savory, and they’d all be fabulous. It’s perhaps not the healthiest idea in the world… but whatever.
3. Pumpkin Spiceteria
In a perfect world, it would be open year round. Everything from pumpkin breads, scones, and cookies to pumpkin curries would be available, and it would be anything but basic.
4. Hot Chocolate Café
No coffee. No tea. No baked goods. Just hot chocolate — zillions and zillions of varieties of hot chocolate. Yessssssssss.
5. Pastry Hybrid Hall
A place for all those hybrid pastries to gather, from cronuts to not-cronuts and from scuffins to creffles.
6. Dunkers
Anything that’s meant to be dunked in something else before being consume would be right at home here. Fondue? We’ve got that. Chips and salsa? Got that, too. Fish fingers and custard? Yep. Dunkaroos? Heck yeah.
7. Ridiculously Expensive Restaurant
Remember all those stupidly expensive food items we looked at a while back? Y’know, the $169 hot dog, the $5,000 burger, and so on? Picture a restaurant that sold only edibles like that. I get the feeling it could go one of either two ways: It goes out of business within days of opening due to operating costs and a lack of demand for their supply… or it becomes a huge hit with the kinds of people who can afford $4,000 toothbrushes.
Images: Les Jardins de la Duchesse/Facebook; Giphy (7)
