Bouley Bakery, renovated, revamped, spiffy, spackled, and freshly painted is now open on West Broadway and Duane, across from the restaurant. The much delayed famed bakery opened on Wednesday much to everyone’s surprise.

Today, I decided to take it upon myself and throw myself on the sword and take one for the team. I spent $40 and sampled one of everything in order to best give you the hits and misses from this famed bakery. Today was rumored to be the last day with famed Parisian bakers in the house, so I decided to make the most of this occassion. Dodging painters still spackling the outside, and dealing with a counter staff who didn’t know that a “pain au chocolat” was the same as the “bread thing with chocolate inside,” I took my forray into buttery bliss.

Muffins- Beginning my day with the selection of muffins on hand, two out of the three I sampled were hits. The lemon poppyseed muffin was moist, sufficiently lemony, and had a bit of what tasted like melted lemon cream inside. Definitely tasty and worthy of a repeat. The orange muffin was equally delectible with chunks of orange tucked into the moist muffin. The one downfall was the three chocolate muffin. It looked promising with the dollop of hazelnut cream right in the center, but it was a tad dry and tasted like a big brownie. I could not differentiate between the three types of chocolate in the muffin which was slighly disappointing.

On to the croissants. The plain croissant was pure butter. Butter glistened off my fingers after the first bite. The pain au chocolat was even better, warm with gooey melted chocolate mingling with the buttery flaky crust. The one disappointment was that they didn’t have any almond croissantes on hand.

The palmiers (elephant ears) were slightly over done. Although crispy, flaky, and sugary, you could almost taste the burnt sugar on them. The napoletains were sinfully good. Almond, lemon, with a hint of orange, all mingling inside a folded pastry dusted with sugar was so amazing, I had to have another on the spot. The apple turnover, messy but sinful.

The baguette was nice as well-crispy on the outside soft and doughy on the inside. I don’t know how to describe it except to say it tasted like a fresh wind on a spring day-light and fluffy.

By this point, I must admit I’m in pain. I still have a few tarts to try and I will…but I might have to curl into the fetal position and die a slow death first from sugar overload.

Overall this bakery doesn’t miss much. The chocolate muffins, palmiers, and unknowledgable counter staff don’t detract from the amazing quality of the rest of the goods. Be forewarned, go early or be willing to wait until their second baking as goods here run out fast.