"Fancy pastries are my love language," said the diner sitting next to me at Lysee, a pastry boutique by chef Eunji Lee in New York City's Flatiron District. We're kindred spirits, I thought, as I was also there at 2:30 p.m. on a Thursday to savor her world-class cakes.
Chef Lee believes pastry is edible art. At Lysee, a portmanteau of her last name and musee, the French word for museum, she offers a gallery-inspired space for customers to consume her creations. Lee, the former executive pastry chef of Jungsik, a New Korean restaurant in Tribeca with two Michelin stars, opened Lysee in 2022.
Lysee is the culmination of Lee's career in the pastry arts, which began with baking in her parent's kitchen in Busan, South Korea. In 2006, she pursued formal training at the Institut National de la Boulangerie Patisserie in Rouen, France, and the Ecole Gregoire-Ferrandi in Paris.
At Le Meurice, she worked under famed pastry chef Cedric Grolet at the hotel's three-star Michelin restaurant. Grolet is known for trompe-l'oeil, a French term meaning "deception of the eye," which he uses to produce desserts that resemble the fruits they're made from. Lee embraced this approach in her famous corn mousse cake.
Ahead of my annual spring trip to NYC, I made a reservation to sample the dessert menu a la carte. Based on Lee's resume and the positive press I'd be reading about her in publications like Food & Wine, my expectations were high. As a pastry lover, I know the disappointment of biting into a dessert and realizing it looked better than it tasted.
Table of Contents
Dessert at Lysee
First Impressions
Upon arriving at Lysee (on the same block of E 21st Street as Cosme), staff greeted me and showed me to my table in the first-floor dining room. The space is cozy, with about a half-dozen round tables, oak chairs, and banquet seating. The large window allows for lots of natural light and gives the room a feeling of spaciousness.
At the opposite end, there's a counter with various mini-cakes on display and chef Lee's recipe book, Plating Dessert. Behind the counter, a door with a window leads to the kitchen, allowing guests to catch glimpses of the pastry chefs at work.
Dining alone meant I couldn't sample as many plated desserts as I could have had I been there with Kel or a friend. There was also the cost to consider. The pastries at Lysee are made with premium ingredients and require significant skill and time to produce; they're priced accordingly.
The second floor, which I recommend visiting before you sit down for a reservation, showcases all of the pastries on the menu as if they're art on display. Unlike most bakeries, there are no glass or plastic barriers between you and the pastries, making it hard to see the details. This room is also where customers can order items to go or pick up items paid for online. There's a $75 minimum for pre-orders; individual corn desserts can only be purchased in-store.
The Menu
The dessert menu is divided into three sections. The Patisserie options include the signature Lysee cake and fan-favorite corn mousse cake. The V.I.C. (Very Important Chocolate Cake) was inspired by the pastry chef's penchant for chocolate layer cake at steakhouses. These desserts cost between $15 and $18 for the smallest (personal) size, except for the mille-feuille for two, which costs $28.
Under Viennoiserie, you'll find a babka with French AOP Isigny butter and chocolate hazelnut spread, the kouign amann, pain au chocolate 2.0, and a vanilla caramel brioche. These pastries average about $7 apiece.
The right side of the pastry menu is titled Gateaux de Voyage and runs the longest. It includes mini yuja, marble, and carrot cakes, shortbreads, milk chocolate banana cookies, and lime olive oil madeleines. Prices range the widest here, from $5.50 for a buckwheat caramel cookie to $40 for the Madeleine Collection.
Corn
I prioritized Eunji Lee's corn mousse cake after reading a delicious account of it in Food & Wine magazine (which featured Lee as one of the country's best new chefs of 2023). The dessert consists of corn mousse on a sable (classic French cookie), with individual kernels of grilled corn cream piped on top. The realistic representation of corn on the cob adds to the excitement. Will she succeed in skillfully evoking corn's flavor, or is this another pretty dessert that fails to deliver on taste?
She delivers. Not only is it an attractive pastry, but the subtle corn flavor is pleasant, and the mix of textures from the creamy mousse and crunchy cookie base work wonderfully together. While you may not have considered corn-flavored desserts before, I'd encourage you to try this one. They sold 6,000 of them in the first six months the shop was open.
Lysee
The second pastry I ordered was the Lysee, Lee's signature mousse cake. It's made with Korean toasted brown rice mousse, caramel, Elliot pecan sable, and praline. The elegant white dessert's design was inspired by traditional Korean roof tiles, known as giwa, with the lone colored section a nod to New York City's diversity. I also find its shape reminiscent of The Michelin Guide's logo.
After admiring the beauty of this dessert, I plunged my golden fork into the cake and removed one roof tile's worth. Once again, there was a delightful play on textures and flavors: the softness of the brown rice mousse and layers of crispy pecan sable and caramel. Like the corn pastry that preceded it, this dessert is deceptively large. One way to make the experience more budget-friendly is to bring a friend, date, or partner and split one of these tasty cakes.
More Treats
The Lysee and corn desserts were enough to fill me up mid-afternoon. So, before paying the bill, I turned my attention to choosing a gift for Kel. I settled on the Teddy Bear Duo 2.0, a pair of chocolate bears atop fresh-baked madeleines. The dark bear is made with a chocolate-hazelnut spread atop a milk chocolate madeleine, while the tan bear is made with maple atop a dulcey chocolate madeleine.
The bears are not as thick as they appear from above. They're a thin layer of molded chocolate resting over the madeleines (not solid chocolate bears), making it easier to enjoy the bear and the madeleine in a single bite.
The Bill
Before leaving my table, I paid the bill totaling $66.41 before the tip. Here's the breakdown: $18 Corn, $17 Lysee, $16 Teddy Bear Duo, $10 Lysee blend tea + cold brew, and $5.41 tax. The total with a 20% tip was $78.61.
It's a lot for a dessert session, I know. But you're getting Michelin-star restaurant quality desserts without having to spend the (potentially) hundreds of dollars on all the courses that come before them. For pastry lovers, that's a winning scenario.
Plan Your Visit
If I've done my job as a writer and you're salivating at the treats on offer at Lysee, there are a few different ways you can enjoy them. If you have at least 45 minutes to spare, I recommend enjoying the pastries in the shop when they're at their best.
Lysee offers three options: an a la carte reservation, a signature reservation, and a weekend brunch reservation. I took advantage of the first, which gives you complete flexibility to order what you want. This is also a good approach if you're dining alone. The downside is that it doesn't guarantee any particular pastries. You're out of luck if they've run out of the corn dessert before your seating.
The signature reservation is like a prix-fix menu. It guarantees you'll get the corn and Lysee desserts, a seasonal tart, and kouign amann. The shop recommends sharing these four pastries among two people, and I concur. It'd be way too much food for most solo diners unless you don't mind taking some to-go. The signature reservation costs $58.90, not including drinks, tax, or gratuity.
If you prefer to skip the seated experience, you can pre-order pastries through the Lysee website for next-day pickup or buy them as a walk-in guest. Lysee is open from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday.
Lysee
44 E 21st St
New York, NY
lyseenyc.com
