Circus Bakery. Paris, France

circus bakery

Circus Bakery is in no way reminiscent of its namesake. The cafe itself is completely devoid of theatrics, and every article of furniture, every article of food, is deliberate and serves a purpose. In fact, when one walks in through the wood panelled french doors, which are flush, almost set back, from the facades of the other shop fronts on the street, one is struck by the bakery’s minimalism—one is also hit with the aroma of warm cinnamon, which, having grown up in New England, makes me nostalgic for crisp fall days.

On one side of the small space is a singular bench on which a few people sit, angling their bodies such that they can see and hear one another. Next to the bench are wooden cartons full of apples. Presumably, these are the apples that will eventually be peeled and sliced, tossed in cinnamon sugar, and arranged artfully on top of a piece of pastry dough and baked into an apple galette. Opposite the bench and the carton of apples is the single table with a wooden surface upon which pastries are stacked or arrayed or displayed. It is against this table that people line up with their backs to the french doors and the busy street. Behind the table is a small, silver La Marzocco espresso machine. Pasted to the machine and visible to customers as they drool over the pastries is their menu for espresso, which is short and boasts of homemade nut milk. On the table, itself are the pastries. In harmony with the space itself, the selection of pastries is limited, with only five or six options to choose from. Written in marker on pieces of tape are the names of each pastry and their price. On every occasion that I have been to Circus, the selection is as follows: sourdough bread (sometimes they also have sesame loaf), sourdough baguette, apple galette, cardamom bun and cinnamon bun. And the simplicity of the selection matches the simplicity of the ingredients they use and the flavors they produce. This is not to say that their pastries are not some of the best, but rather, that they are nothing fancy, which makes them taste almost better in a city known for its fanciful desserts.

Circus Bakery also defies the obvious notion of a Circus in its transparency, which is both a function and product of its simplistic form. There is no man behind the curtain, everything is self-evident. From behind a makeshift wall of sheet-racks, two bakers stand before large, industrial ovens with racks from floor to ceiling. They wear the traditional, white uniform of a chef and they move about the space and about each other quickly and effortlessly. It is from the large ovens that they pull large racks of freshly baked cinnamon roles. One chef, a small, agile woman, moves from the ovens directly over to the table where she places on the parchment warm cinnamon buns. The sugar that is precisely folded into ever knot of the dough now flows down and forms a ring around the pastry and crystalizes on the paper.

I ordered a cinnamon bun and the women, rather than grabbing from the sheet before her, turned to the row of sheet racks and grabbed one from there. She placed it in a small white bag. I paid. When I went to take the cinnamon out of the bag, no more than seconds after exiting the small space that had quickly become crowded with people, it was still warm. As I tugged on its edges, it came apart effortlessly, as the thick pieces of dough pulled apart and then pinched at a random point to separate. The dough was not overwhelmingly sweet, which surprised me, and the first flavor one tastes is that of the cinnamon itself, not of sugar. The dough was light and airy. This was less surprising because on the surface of the dough, even before I had broken it apart, I could see small air bubbles.

I walked as I ate it, heading toward a different small café in the Latin Quarter, this one specializing in excellent coffee. However, this was not the type of pastry that leaves you with an insatiable thirst, that requires a warm glass of milk. The buttery, cinnamon mixture which ties the whole pastry together moistens the dough sufficiently. I rather head for coffee as the only logical place to end a pleasant afternoon in Paris. It is early, but the sun begins to set as I walk and I am suddenly nostalgic. Although this pastry is unfamiliarly divine, it was simple and sweet like childhood. Maybe that is why Circus is named for this thing it seems wholeheartedly unlike, because of the inexplicable youthfulness of its entire experience.