Masse's Pastries

Of all the times we used to visit Thane back in the 90's and even during our more recent trips, we never ventured into what they call, the "Gourmet Ghetto" in north Berkeley. This is the same area that houses the famed Chez Panisse (helmed by many uppity foodies' wet dream/poster girl and target for Anthony Bourdain's derision, Alice Waters).

The area also has Andronico's Market (an upscale grocery chain), the Cheeseboard Collective, along with a a variety of higher end artisanal shops selling coffee, cupcakes, candy, and in this case, macarons from Masse's Pastries...

I was curious to try some of their macs after hearing them mentioned in passing by former Berkeley resident Jinxi of Jinxi Eats.

It was so adorable inside and yes, I was a sucker for their displays of insanely cute desserts...


Their variety of macarons was also quite nice. They weren't terrible expensive either, at $1.25 each (which is the same price point at Brodard's in the OC).

We were so attracted by the pistachio eclair that we ended up getting one!

Below, a customer pointing out his order to the owner Paul Masse.

In addition to the eclair, we also got a chocolate chip cookie dusted with espresso powder on it's edges.

Of the two desserts, I liked the cookie's bitterness...

while Bert and TC enjoyed the creaming filling of the pistachio eclair.

The filling was also pistachio flavored with gave this dessert a  double punch.

These were just a few more sweet bites we enjoyed that afternoon.

As for the macarons, I ordered one of each flavor and we enjoyed them several days later. Here they are before they were entombed in the box.

The flavors included: strawberry balsamic, pistachio, chocolate hazelnut, passionfruit, vanilla macadamia, yuzu, key lime, and salted caramel. Each macaron had a distinct flavor but my only grip was that some of their shells were hollow instead of being sold. Hmmm, I didn't expect that from such a high end place. The yuzu had a light citrus flavor while the salted caramel was quite pronounced. The strawberry balsamic was also an interesting flavor combination. TC's favorite was the vanilla macadamia.

Masse's Pastries
1469 Shattuck Ave
Berkeley, CA 94079
(510) 649-1004

www.massespastries.com

Next door was yet another tempting place featuring one word that had TC's attention...

Gelato.