Delightful,
Eccentric, Inviting, Tasty:
by Vic Chapman
I discovered this place one day while hunting for a parking spot. The only
available one was right in front of a spanking new new caf?? bakery that
looks like it was lifted bodily from France and dropped into Fifth Avenue,
near Ash Street.
Opera Café Patisserie
Fines is the first outlet for a Carlsbad-based wholesale
bakery operation that has several years
success under its belt.
The creations offered here are completely French with very few submissions
made to an American palate sense.
This is a very, very good
thing indeed.
France has had centuries to
perfect doing things the old fashioned way, and the old
fashioned way is the order
of the day at Opera Café.
There are no preservatives used here; everything is either fresh
that day or flash frozen. Sustainability is built
into all the ingredients that
go into every macaroon, every pastry or quiche, too, meaning that
wherever possible, organics and other easy on the
earth products are used throughout
their production process. The result is a virtually unaltered interpretation
of the French real McCoy of fine pastries and as more and more people
downtown are discovering, this new café is
the place to go.
Macaroons are a signature
item; these are a simple chocolate with a flourless ganache-nothing
else. Light as a feather and delicate
as a soap bubble,
these explode rich flavor on contact and completely own your mouth.
Paired with the caf?'s Illy house coffee, this simple taste is worth
a long drive
from anywhere in San Diego just to try it. Like a complete fool,
I managed to wolf through a dozen macaroons before I even realized
it.
And that was only the beginning. They sell them in boxes of 36.
They
offer an Italian meringue that is unique in San Diego. Other places
create meringue-but not like this. Same for the caramel pecan,
or their
varieties of extremely thin, flexy, take on pizza which is derived
from a style native to Alsace. There are two varieties here; one
is a bacon,
onion, mushroom and bleu cheese creation that is so rich that one
slice will leave you sated for an entire afternoon, and a more
traditional looking
margherita style. For some pizza fetishists, these may take a bit
of getting used to because of the flat crust. But you simply have
to try them once
to be converted.
There seem to be no end to
what they offer; quiches in profusion, cakes, delices that
vary by the day; there
isn't space to describe
them all.
Sufficient to say that Thierry, the owner, was a chef for the
Ritz Carlton for some
years after he spent a long apprenticeship in his native France.
But the café is rarely empty-the young women from the
Paul Mitchell school around the corner are there morning, noon
and night.
Clad in all black,
they lend an even more intriguing feel to the café which
is further enlivened by the sensitive decor and the rambling
antique store
next
door that can be accessed through a common door way. Every detail
is in its
proper place and the house is elegantly thought out.
At present,
Opera Café's hours are in a state of flux. They
are open early, certainly by 7 a.m. and will perhaps open even
earlier. They
remain open until or 6 p.m. or whenever sundown changes the
tone of the neighborhood or when the girls from Paul Mitchell
leave
for the
day.
But Opera Café is a welcome addition to San Diego's
café scene.
Don't miss them when you're next downtown.
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