Anchorage is relatively rich in bakeries. There are three or four bread-producing bakeries in town, each serving at least some small range of pastries. So I’m not constantly on the lookout for more options. Yet something tempted me about Paris Bakery Café. Perhaps it was the signage, adorned with festive script and a stylized Eiffel Tower, or perhaps it was the enthusiasm that was ever-present among the staff the first time I peeked in to look around. Either way, I became determined to get a good look at the menu and pastries available here.

The bakery itself is both a commercial and catering operation as well as a retail bakery, and their breads are available in various restaurants around town. It provided the welcoming scent of proofing and baking bread that enticed me to bring the family in for a meal at the café.

The café itself is unassuming, with diner tables and chairs that wear their filigree humbly. The staff was attentive and flexible to the needs of children (I ordered a dish to be split three ways, which was accommodated without a blink). The food was nice, and employed a few elements that impressed. Take for instance the seafood fettuccine ($16.95)—its noodles were the light, eggy noodles of high standard, not the heavy grocery sort that is most often employed, and the cream sauce clearly started as a roux, not just some boiled cream, yet left no trace of flour on the palate. The tomato, onion and zucchini retained some of their body, giving a textural counterpoint to the noodles and to the sweet scallops. My only complaint was that the salmon and halibut were both a bit chewier than I would have liked. The clam chowder that came as an accompaniment was well prepared, with a tart cream stock filled with potato and vegetables that were cooked to a firm but yielding consistency. The French dip sandwich ($11.95) was also nice, with lean beef slices served on a house-baked baguette that had a chewy crumb and a crackling crust, but the touch that made the dish in my mind was that it was served with authentic jus, the unadorned broth of beef, and not some over-seasoned soup base. My favorite dish, however, was the quiche Lorraine salad ($8.95), a slice of quiche served with a heap of spring mix greens. I chose to have the salad dressed with vinaigrette, which was applied with reverence to the greens’ own flavors, and the quiche amazed me. It had delicate custard that refused to separate into clumps of egg even after reheating, and a crust that was flaky. The bacon was crisp even in the moist custard, and the onion was cooked to coax its sweetness. I had to relinquish at least part of it to my son to avoid a filial rebellion right there in the restaurant.

Though the café pleased us, it in no way compared to the bakery. I want to very carefully point out here that I consider the pastries here to be Alaska's answer to true patisserie, with ingredients imported to preserve the foodways of French pastry-baking, not substituted with easily-found ersatz components.

First, I would like to praise the croissants ($1.95). They are by far the best that I have had in town, with a crunch at the crust that gives way to a tenderness that seems almost incongruous in one roll. They are suffused with the flavor of butter, which makes this textural dichotomy possible.

The éclair ($3.95) is also a treat, with a toothsome paté à choux split and filled with chocolate cream (rather tastier than the common Bavarian cream found in town) and glazed with a darker chocolate. And the raisin brioche ($1.95) was a lighter take on the cinnamon roll, which employed each flavor of the American variant more subtly, with a lightly sweet glaze and much of the sweetness in the pastry conferred by the raisins themselves.

The best pastry by far, however, was the raspberry mirroir ($4.95). A crust of white cake was filled with an unsweetened raspberry cream, which was tart and rich at the same time. A paper-thin bittersweet chocolate base and a soft meringue on top added the sweetness that tempered the sour flavor of the cream without overshadowing it.

There is obviously a care being taken here that is a cut above most other bakeries in town, There is a wealth of other pastries here from frangipane to clafoutis that I am confident will also prove to be of superior quality. I'll be sure to return, to give them each a try.

Paris Bakery Café

500 Muldoon Suite 6

337-2575

www.parisbakerycafe.net

Mon-Wed 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thurs-Sat 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.