For Mother’s Day: Beautiful French Pastries from a Crown Heights Walk-Up
The Deligram is an ode to the artisanal food makers of New York. In our last issue, we spoke with Benton Brown of Crown Finish Caves, a cheese-aging cave in a series of former brewing tunnels below Crown Heights. Meanwhile, above ground, this issue spotlights another long-time resident of Crown Heights: Daniel Skurnick. Although the seasoned chef’s resume reads like a bucket list of New York’s must-eat restaurants, his new venture FoxBread Bakery is on a much smaller scale and closer to home. In fact, it’s in his home–Skurnick makes everything in his own apartment, and runs each order up and down his four flights of stairs.
The Product: Classic, beautifully executed French baked goods.
The Deli Pick: Rum baba
How To Buy: DM @foxbreadbakery to place your order, and pick up in Crown Heights on Saturday evening or Sunday morning. (Consider this your reminder that pastries will make the perfect Mother’s Day gift–the menu will go live on May 2nd, and orders must be placed by May 4th.)
Price: Most items are between $35 and $45.
I moved to New York in 2000, and would be apartment hunting after working 10-12 hour shifts. I finally found essentially an entire brownstone on Eastern Parkway for $900 a month, and that was it–I’ve been living in Crown Heights for about 20 years now. In that time, I’ve worked as a pastry cook and then a chef [mostly] in Manhattan – first at Gramercy Tavern, then at David Bouley’s restaurant in TribeCa, Jean Georges, River Café, and the Starr Restaurant Group’s Buddakan and Morimoto, and then I opened Le CouCou in Soho. So I was commuting from my neighborhood and my home that I love to go and feed people who were probably like, ‘Crown Heights, where is that?” Then… the pandemic happened. I went from working six or seven days a week, 14 hours a day, to having all this time on my hands. So I started making a couple of things as testers for friends and neighbors as a way to not go completely crazy.
I started out in savory cooking, but at a certain point in my career I remember looking over at the pastry side of things, and seeing how organized and kind of calm things were. I like being able to plan a few steps ahead, which is easier in pastry than in savory. I’ve done desserts for Japanese, Italian, American restaurants – but I just really connect with old school, French grandma desserts. Some people might see them as being a little high end or fanciful, but they’re really just classic, old school, desserts. [I started selling] on my personal Instagram account, and then eventually I made a FoxBread account, which is where I post the menu and communicate with customers through DM.
Months [after I started], I went out to The Ryerson to pick up food and a cocktail. As I’m paying the manager looks at the name on my card and he’s like, “Hey, you’re the bakery guy, right? Big fan!” I’d never been ID'd in my neighborhood before, I was like, “Man I’ve lived here for 20 years, and the world slapped me in the face and said ‘be part of your actual neighborhood.”
Before I started FoxBread and I was doing all this work at restaurants, people would ask, “Do you want to open your own place?” And I was always like, “No, I’m a restaurant person.” I’d like to expand just a little bit. I don’t see it being a massive, seating for 40 people inside kind of place. I have to find the right space, the right feel, and the right vibe so it’s still accessible – maybe not Parisian French but, like, Brooklyn French.
Right now, pick up days can definitely be stressful. There are weeks when I have 80 orders and I am constantly running back and forth, up and down four flights of stairs, and I know that someone’s order is going to get messed up. The amount of space can also be challenging. Like, the bakery was shutting down in the summertime because I just don’t have that much refrigerator space. It works best in the winter, when I can just keep every window open in the apartment to keep everything under 40 or so degrees. During Thanksgiving, the oven is literally on for 72 hours non stop, just roasting apples for tarte tatins in a continuous cycle. So it’s just a juggle of figuring out what can happen and when.
Greatest hit: The Paris-Brest, which is coming back for Mother’s Day, is up there. It's a large ring of pâte à choux in the shape of a bike wheel, and it’s definitely one of my more show-stopping desserts. It has hazelnut praline pastry cream, candied hazelnuts and little, sugar-coated cream puffs as well. It's big, glorious and messy, something you can spoil your mom with.
How to enjoy FoxBread: Honestly, whatever the item is, I just want people to destroy it. I spend all this time making something really beautiful, and I want to see it completely decimated. If you see a half-eaten dessert and are like, “That looks good, I want what’s on that guy’s plate,” then that’s a good dessert.
Most underrated item: The things that are underrated are the things I want to eat most, like a simple, butter almond cake. I’ll do a brown butter almond financier and everyone goes for the ooey, gooey, Paris-Brest. I’m a simple man, I just want a slice of cake.
Favorite food makers: I love Apt. 2 Bread. She makes beautiful breads. She's selling at the farmers market now, but she was lowering bread from a basket Lorax style from her apartment at one point. I love the work of Jessica and Trina Quinn from Dacha 46. They do beautiful, Eastern European dumplings and cakes and things like that, and they're just really good people. And whenever Natasha Pickowicz is in town, I love eating her food or working with her.
Favorite restaurants to eat at in NY: Agi’s Counter on Franklin, which is making some amazing pastries and beautiful Hungarian food. The Fly for the best chicken sandwich and bottles of wine. Karasu behind Walter’s for fun Japanese snacks and cocktails, and &Sons Ham Bar and all the other fun projects André Mack is making.
