The Visually Stimulating Pastries of Pastry Chef Eunji Lee

As a food designer, I firmly believe people “eat with their eyes.” The more appealing the colors, the textures, the display… the more fulfilling every bite tastes. When food is presented beautifully, it can trigger our appetites and stimulate our taste buds, making the dish more appetizing and desirable. As humans, we are highly visual creatures, and we often judge a dish based on its appearance before even taking a bite.

Lysée Bakery, located in New York’s Flatiron District, is a charming and unique bakery that has gained a reputation for its high-quality and visually stimulating pastries. Founded by pastry chef Eunji Lee and chef and husband Matthieu Lobry, Lysée Bakery is known for its delicate and delicious baked goods that are made with the finest ingredients and an incredible attention to detail.

“I wanted to have a space that corresponds to my identity and my dessert style: Korean-French-New Yorker,” says Lee, who spent ten years training and working in Paris, notably under Alain Ducasse and Cedric Grolet at Le Meurice, before becoming the executive pastry chef at the two Michelin-starred Korean restaurant Jungsik in Tribeca.

The name Lysée (lee-zay) is derived from the French word “Musee” which means “museum,” the perfect name to encapsulate the gallery-like take on the meticulously crafted pastry art on display.

The seasonally rotating menu is playful yet executed with highly technical style. From their signature mousse cake made with Korean toasted brown rice mousse with caramel, to the corn mousse dessert that went viral on social media, whose corn sablé is topped with an airy corn crémeux piped over with a grilled corn cream to resemble the vegetable in its entirety.

“To me, pastry is an edible art.” says Chef Eunji Lee.

And thus, when entering the sparse and refined boutique space itself, you feel like you’ve walked into an art gallery in Chelsea. Reflecting similar attention to detail and cultural influences that Lee brings to Lysée’s menu, the decor is a beautiful harmony of both traditional Korean culture and modern NYC design.

“I wanted to create a culturally meaningful space that is also well-balanced and harmonious. We have traditional Korean materials, like a mother-of-pearl wall, a Korean wood pillar from an ancient traditional mansion in Korea, and used traditional [granite] stone [from Pocheon in Korea] for the bottom of a table. The design highlights the pastry as edible art, as the hero of the stage. Using this very understated, minimalistic design puts the emphasis on our pastries as the main objects.”

There is no question, Lee’s dessert “gallery,” where her edible art is on full display is a delight for the eyes and taste buds.

And to make it sweeter… Lysée just announced their first pop-up collaboration with chef Roy Shvartzapel. On March 11 and 12th only, the bakery will offer an exclusive, unique panettone menu for dine-in and take-out. Reservations are available through Resy, and pre-orders will start at 10am on Saturday Feb 25th. Set your alarms!

Lysée bakery is located at 44 E 21st Street, New York, NY 10010.

Compostable Cling Film Made From Discarded Potato Skins

For the most part, whenever possible, we all prefer to use reusable bags, cloth napkins, and glass containers to store our leftovers in the fridge. That said, for those moments when life happens, or you work in a plastic wrap reliant, fast-paced kitchen, you can now find several BPI certified fully compostable cling wraps on the market, like For Good + Zefiro. Now, of course, you should always check your composting facility to see what they accept. But these clings are made with PLA & Biobased PBAT plants that meet internationally recognized standards to safely biodegrade, break down into carbon and water, in a home or commercial composting facility. It’s high-performance cling, doesn’t compromise strength or firmness by including pre-perforated sheets. Both brands have successfully made the packaging fully compostable and recyclable, by eliminating the blade and keeping this packaging plastic free.

And then there’s Great Wrap, an Australian biomaterials company, that offers another alternative to cling film that’s made from discarded potato skins and packaged in an abnormally alluring and fun container with a built-in cutter.

The wrap naturally biodegrades in as little as 180 days into food and energy for the microbes in your compost. For all intents and purposes, its components are organic – discarded potato skins, cooking oil, and starch from the cassava root – more popularly known as tapioca. So, if ingested, it isn’t toxic or harmful, but don’t go putting it on the menu.

Currently, the Australia-based company sources its potato skins/peels from Idaho, which dramatically increases its carbon footprint. They are working on being able to find local sources for discarded potato skins, to help reduce their overall carbon impact.

Another barrier is the fact that Great Wrap doesn’t break down or degrade in marine environments like ocean ecosystems. But by working with researchers at Melbourne’s Monash University, they are close to converting potato waste into polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), which can break down in oceans and other aquatic environments in less than a year. In 2023 they launched in the US and will begin building their PHA biorefinery that will divert over 50,000 metric tons of potato waste from landfills every year.

And that’s no small potatoes.

To purchase Great Wrap, visit greatwrap.co.