Artisan Boulanger - 대한민국 제과명장 박준서 베이커리 — Restaurant in Palisades Park

People around me were talking about a new bakery in Palisades Park, New Jersey, saying it’s a super famous bakery from Korea. So I decided to check it out. It’s apparently one of the “Top 11 Master Bakers” establishments, so I had high expectations.

When I got there, I noticed the special items like cakes were more expensive than I expected. I figured, “Well, maybe it’s because it’s made by a master baker.” For example, a small 4-5 inch mango mousse cake was priced at $32.

The overall presentation didn’t really help either. The lighting over the bread display was dim, which made the bread look less appetizing. The glass display cases were covered in smudges and fingerprints, making it hard to see the bread inside. As for the fresh sandwiches, they weren’t wrapped or covered — just left open in the display, which made me hesitant to try them.

Still, I was curious about the taste, so I bought a few items.

Just two weeks ago, I returned from Korea, and I couldn’t forget the taste of the salted bread I had at a bakery in Hongdae. So I picked a salted bread, a croquette (one of my favorites), and a basic coffee to go with it.

The coffee? It was so bland I couldn’t drink more than a sip. It tasted like coffee-flavored water. In my opinion, good coffee plays a big role in enjoying bakery items, so they definitely need to upgrade their coffee. Avoid their regular coffee at all costs.

As for the salted bread—it was just a roll sprinkled with salt. Salted bread should have a texture that’s a mix between a roll and a croissant, but this was just a chewy roll with some salt on top.

The croquette was a potato salad croquette, and honestly, the ones you find at D’avant are 100 times better.

If you’re someone who misses the taste of old-fashioned bread from the ’80s and ’90s, you might like it here.

But for me, I don’t think I’ll...

*Buyers BEWARE: the bread you buy may be contaminated with MOLD. *

I live far outside Palisades Park and decided to stop by for some pastries and bread at this location on my trip to the area. However when I got home that same day after a 3-hour drive, I noticed the bread had black and white mold underneath the plastic cover. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to travel back there anytime soon so I waited for a few days until I was certain about my foreseeable schedule before contacting them. The person I spoke to asked me a bunch of questions and told me to wait until she addressed her questions with the manager. Then a couple of mins later a stranger picked up the line without any knowledge about my inquiry and I ended up giving her a whole explanation all over again. Then she said she would have her manager reach out to me and I got a text message from the manager fairly quickly. I sent the manager pictures of the bread with mold along with the receipt. I asked for a refund for the bread because I wasn’t able to consume any part of it but s/he refused saying that “this has never happened” which implied that I was lying. I texted back clarifying my points and called but s/he didn’t pick up so I left a voicemail but have not heard back ever since. Not only am I never returning to the store but I also want future customers to know that this could happen to them too. The store should know that selling spoiled products may easily be a civil...

Soft opening since 8/29/24 so I came on 9/3 and it was already crowded with customers. For beverages, they only offer iced americano, iced latte, and iced vanilla latte for now but I’m sure it’ll be updated when they do their grand opening. Employees at the register seemed confused and could not tell the breads apart and seemed like they didn’t get to memorize the names of the pastries yet but it’s soft opening so I get it. I got the 소금빵 (salt bread), 슈크림 (choux bread), 떡빵 (rice cake bread), 마약빵 (creamy corn bread), 올리브 트윈빵 (olive twins), 몽블랑 (montblanc), and 크랜베리 크림치즈빵 (cranberry cream cheese bread). 소금빵 was very fluffy and savory, 슈크림 I thought they chose the wrong type of bread, it didn’t go well with the cream. 마약빵 was good, just as the name says, it was creamy corn inside. 올리브빵 was mid, it felt like ciabatta bread and olive inside.. the cranberry cream cheese bread we grabbed out of a whim because we saw it get freshly replaced and it was still steaming when we tried it in the car. It was so good! I’m wondering if it’ll still be good if it was left to cool for a while. Overall it’s nice to have another Korean bakery open up in the neighborhood with plenty of seating. I don’t think I would come to have a quiet...