Tatte: rich, buttery, aloof

There's a bakery around the corner from my office that looks so immaculate, it makes me feel I've walked in on a movie set by mistake. Tatte, on Beacon Street in Brookline, is tiny and light-filled, and half the store is taken up with an oversized table holding a minimalist selection of perfect pastries.



Tatte's dessert selection is limited, but the star seems to be the nut box, shown above in the grande variety. The smaller one is equally pretty.



It's basically a pastry shell filled with nuts. Doesn't that sound lame? Okay, how's this: the pastry is so butter-loaded that it's practically shortbread. The nuts (pecans, pistachios, hazelnuts) are covered in a not-too-sweet caramelly coating. For a handful of nuts and a bit of pastry, it's amazingly rich.

I also picked up a ricotta-spinach brioche, which was likewise decadent, rich and buttery (but it had spinach, so it was healthy. Really).



And I had a fresh pear juice, which has a subtle note of cinnamon and caused co-worker Sarah to say, "Wow, it makes me wish it was fall already!" I don't love the sentiment, but I know where she was coming from.

So Tatte creates lovely treats (albeit expensive: my three purchases cost me $13). And yet I'm hesitant to recommend it. Why?

Because the counter staff at Tatte are decidedly unfriendly.

Now you know me: I'm a pretty laid-back, thick-skinned gal (and, allegedly, a bit of a ham). So it doesn't offend me personally if people are restrained or reserved. What does bug me, though, is when people who work in customer-service positions cop attitudes of superiority.

The salesgirls at Tatte were unsmiling and aloof. When I asked whether it would be okay if I took photos, they looked at me as though I'd asked if I could gut a fish on the counter. And then one said, "Well ... I suppose so," and the other said (though not to me), "The Phoenix sent a photographer round last week."

I don't often feel uncomfortable around other people, but here I did. So I picked up my change from the counter (because she wouldn't put it in my hand) and scuttled out.

And then I started wondering whether I was being paranoid. But cube-neighbor Nikki said, "No, the South End Buttery is exactly the same; they're very obnoxious. Plus their cupcakes are terrible."

I don't want to suggest this is a trend: the staff at Sweet on Mass Ave are lovely, as is the owner of Kickass Cupcakes, so there's no direct correlation between bakeries and bitchiness.

But I'd be interested to know whether there are other examples of posh pastry shops with poor personalities. Or, for that matter, places where the service is as sweet as the confectionary.

Anyone?

Cupcakes? Sweet!

I've written before about how the recent explosion of cupcake fanaticism suggests a nostalgic hipster yearning for the carefree days of childhood. But for all my pseudo-ironic swagger, I do love a nice cakey.

So when a sign in a Mass. Ave. storefront heralded the imminent arrival of cupcakery Sweet, I started keeping track of its progress (walls are up ... tables are in ... ooh, there's a display case ...).

When I walked past yesterday, there was a "now open" sign in the window. So today, together with cupcake aficionados Sarah and Dawn, I went to check it out.

It's a tiny store; this is pretty much the whole thing.



(Note the flat-screen TV, here showing the end credits for Sophia Coppola's elegant cupcake Marie Antoinette.)

Humongous carnation cupcake from Winston Flowers:



Gorgeous wallpaper from Studio Printworks:



Coordinating candy:



Nice package:



There's an attention to detail and an eye for design throughout the brand identity that keeps it fun and fresh without teetering into saccharine princess cuteness.

So, that's my report ...

The what?

I forgot what?

Oh, you mean these?







(Check out the finishing touch on this last bunch: gold! Goooold! We're rich, I tells ya!)

It wasn't too hard to figure out which flavors to try, as Sweet's menu only has five choices. A further helpful restriction was the price: full-size cupcakes are $3.25, the mini versions a buck cheaper. Bulk buys are a relative bargain, and four mini cupcakes are $8, which seems more reasonable (and certainly less than the cost of dessert at most decent restaurants).

So I chose lemon, cappuccino, dark chocolate and organic karat (that's the one topped with edible gold leaf).

Somehow I managed to get them back to the office, leave them on my desk all afternoon and carry them home without even "accidentally" dipping a finger in the frosting, much less stuffing all four in my face at once. The Boy was suitably grateful.

First impression: well, they certainly are tiny.



But they're potent little packages. The karat cake (geddit?) was dense and spicy and topped with a thick, chewy cream cheese frosting, which just stopped short of being overwhelmingly sweet and harmonized well with the cake.

The lemon was bright and vibrant and much less sweet--it was restrained, refreshing, and cake and frosting came together as one flavor, rather than playing off each other as the carrot cupcake did. (Update: in the shower this morning, I realized what it reminded me of: Bigelow's lovely line of lemon unguents and ointments.)

Cappuccino was the most "grown-up" cake; more elegant and complex, rich without being ostentatious.

Chocolate was good ol' chocolate, all big friendly round bass notes, satisfyingly chocolate-puddingy.

The only bad thing about Sweet: I walk past it almost every day. Can I possibly restrain myself? Oh, go on, it's only a teeny tiny cupcake ... cheaper than a latte ...