Pâtisserie Rotha — Attraction in Albany

Croissant au beurre Pain au Chocolat Kouign Amann (exotique) ~ Far Breton Short story: Rotha Fournée, hands-down. — The pâte levée feuilletée (PLF) in the croissant & PauC looks to have 3 tours simples, giving 27 butter layers and smaller alvéoles in the mie cross-section, but this will preserve freshness longer. (I usually prefer 12 or 16 layers of butter, but this is a matter of taste, and, again, targetted consumption time after bake.) The croissant’s mie is a perfectly uniform bake, and super-super-super soft, almost certainly due to a higher lamination butter fraction; likely hitting 30+% weight of the détrempe. This also contributes to longer-lasting freshness. You can taste and smell the butter. The super-soft mie is a gorgeous mouthfeel complement to the crispy exterior. (The person in front of me knew to ask for a darker bake from a tray to the side; I followed suit and asked for “plus foncé”…yeah, the person who works the counter is fluent in English & French, so 100% of our transaction was in French!) The visual density of the small alvéolage surprised me given the lightness (in heft) of the baked piece in the hand. Very interesting to feel so light but look fairly dense!

The PauC inherits the same PLF base of the croissant. The pair of bars were placed close together; the sandwiched PLF was (as usual) dense right in between the bars, but this inherent effect was not dominant across the mie. In fact, the rise and/or bake-time butter explosion conspired to give a gorgeous internal cavern, while the outermost mie still presented alvéolage. I would estimate the bake at two hours old, give or take (assuming it lived entirely at room temp after baking) given the softness of the chocolate. You get the soft mie mouthfeel alongside the denser chocolate and crispy exterior, and there is strong enough butter/dough flavor coming through from the PLF that you get that taste, too, even as the chocolate starts to come on. Nice.

The kouign amann…ok, my pet peeve, as these are never the traditional Breton cakes, but the popular spinoff. That said, this one has nice references to the traditional cake! It has an open center, and the interior lining is appropriately over-buttered with a salted butter wetness; this pastry comes from the butter cake. The entire exterior is uniformly coated with thin but crunchy caramel, although the salt doesn’t come through as strongly from the exterior as from the wet center. Relatively dense body overall, and a quite open center…very interesting. The play of flavors and textures is closer to the original cake than most all of this spinoff variety that I’ve had in the U.S.

The Far Breton…well, I am familiar with the name, but not the pastry! I cannot judge it due to complete lack of experience. The baking caramelization on the outside gave toffee-like hints suggesting a brown sugar in or on the very eggy (almost custard-y) dough, and there are large pieces of fruit (dates?) in the center. A delicious and distinctive piece, but I have no familiarity with reference standards. — To sum up, I had to force myself to stop eating all four of them, but could have easily blown through the lot, even though I wasn’t even particularly hungry for breakfast when I started the...

You will never regret coming here. After so many years of wondering why people love croissants and French pastries in general, after coming here I now know why. I have seen the light. I've never had any croissants as good as this place, both before and after, not even when I finally visited Paris (that's right, not even the French can beat this place). There's just something magical about the plain butter croissant; perfectly crisp and flaky, but soft and tender inside. The best part is the rich buttery smell and taste that I swear I've never tasted anywhere else. I don't get it. Rotha's got that secret touch... I have tried just about every single item, and if you're lucky, certain weekends they'll have seasonal specials (like meringues) but my favorite has to be the standard plain croissant (but the apricot is a super close second)

They are only open Thu - Sun, and you'd better be prepared to get up early 'cause they tend to sell out by 10a-10:30a; however, protip, if you want to avoid lines Thursday mornings are the most chill. There's usually only 1-2 other folks ahead of me and I can get in and out with pretty much everything I want. If you wanna stock up, they also freeze pretty well.

Go to Rotha's. You...

the summary: very Berkeley bakery, not my favorite style of almond croissants but good if you're into the rustic meets refined baking style

The verdict: it's good. Worth a line? No. Top of mind must try or go again? Not for me. I would give it 3 stars if rating for my preference but giving 4 stars taking into account if others would like it.

The details: this place always has a line and has been heard to have better almond croissants than fournee (also not my favorite almond croissant but considered one of the best for Berkeley) so was interested to try. Finally had a chance to try and wasn't a little let down (just like fournee).

The style is rustic with a lot of glaze and flattened, which is a first for me. They were pretty skimpy on the frangipane on the inside which is a big nono for me. Just tasted like a flattened croissant with glaze and powdered sugar. Not much almond. The best part was the tips, which with the glaze was actually a fun chewy/crunchy bite. Would guess their kouign-amannes would be good based on that...