A pastry shop in Manhattan offers Gurmeher Juneja much more than just coffee and sweet treats.
It is no secret that I’m a big fan of coffee. I get coffee when I’m happy. I get coffee when I’m sad. I also get coffee when I’m stressed, because how else will I navigate life unless I spike my cortisol levels even more? I’ve had coffee even in moments when I was craving comfort food. If there is one food that I associate with all types of emotions I experience, it is… coffee.
On days when my social batteries are depleted, I want a social detox. I’m a people person but sometimes, I really need a break from everyone, so that I can feel like I’m all my own, my whole self. I have days when I want to run away, to just spend time with myself, to sit with my thoughts, to steep in my internal world – a world which on days feels so much nicer and safer than the external one. For such days, I had a place of escape. It was The Hungarian Pastry Shop on 111th St. and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan.
Situated on a quiet corner of Morningside Heights, The Hungarian Pastry Shop – as the name suggests – is a tiny European-style cafe offering coffee and a wide range of desserts. On its shelves are lemon tarts, cream puffs, croissants, cheesecake, carrot cake, apricot hamantaschen, and a whole bunch of Hungarian-style layered cakes. The menu offers such a huge spread of sugary decadence, that even if one came here regularly and tried a new dish each time, it would be months before they succeeded in trying everything.
While the menu was large, I had a standard order: one regular drip coffee, and a baked New York-style cheesecake. I’m not a creature of habit. In fact, I’m more of a creature of exploration. But sometimes when a certain combination sits well with me, it stays with me.
The Hungarian Pastry Shop has the best cheesecake I’ve ever had. The first bite of it lulled me into a delicious food coma. It has the perfect combination of creamy, buttery, cheesy madness – from the butter in the crust to the cheese and cream in the upper layers of the cake. The sweetness was just right. I would also get coffee along with it, a strong drip Americano. The contrast of sweetness and bitterness would play out perfectly on my palate.
The best part about The Hungarian Pastry Shop? It offers unlimited free refills of regular drip coffee. A small barrel of brewed coffee is placed in the middle of the shop, so customers can fill it whenever they need a top-up, without bothering the baristas busy attending to the bustle.
The cafe, in shades of red and white, has rustic wooden furniture and old-style lamps attached to the wall by each table. It barely has any central lighting, so tables closer to the walls are more brightly lit than those in the middle. This dim lighting adds to its cosiness, making it ideal for dates. Even so, people also come here to study, work, or read a book.
The Hungarian Pastry Shop is a place filled with regulars. Folks who have been living in the Morningside neighbourhood for ages frequent the cafe. Because Columbia University is just five blocks away, the place also welcomes plenty of students. Writers love it too, they come in and tap away on their laptops.
From the outside, punters might assume that the pastry shop is a quiet place but once you go inside, very quickly, the volume amplifies. The clamour of people fills the room. The room is small, and the tables are crammed against each other, so there’s barely any aisle space. Every once in a while, somebody has to move their table a bit, to make space for diners passing by. Because the tables are so close, I’ve eavesdropped on so many interesting conversations at the Hungarian Pastry Shop. Sometimes I have even been tempted to pitch in (but have refrained from better judgement). I’d overhear first-date conversations, and try to work out if the meeting would lead to a second date.
There are many books I’ve read at The Hungarian Pastry Shop. The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit, We Were Liars by E. Lockhart – to name a few. I would sip on my coffee, have a spoonful of the cheesecake, and turn pages. The experience of all three tag-teamed well to give me the precise level of comfort I was seeking, the exact escape I was looking for.
All of this put me in a mental zone that I craved, one I otherwise lack when I am surrounded by people I know. I’ve spent innumerable hours at The Hungarian Pastry Shop, reflecting on things, observing people, but mostly learning that food to me is not just about consumption. It is about the experience of everything associated with it – its taste of course, but also the thoughts I have while I’m eating it, the people I think of, the feeling I’m left with once I’ve finished it. I liked the thoughts I had at the Hungarian Pastry Shop. There, it was just me, my book, and my coffee, and I felt I could be whoever I wanted to be. But most importantly, I felt I could be truly me, even in the company of people.