Payard Pâtisserie
Caesars Palace (last visit: May 2008).
Bakery and Restaurant.
Las Vegas is well known for its one-upsmanship. It's been a grand old tradition to see who could have the biggest, the most expensive, the most popular. Lately, this has become a wonderful thing, as hotels vie with each other to see who can offer the best shows, the best restaurants...and the best bakeries. Payard Pȃtisserie is the latest in this category. It consists of a small sit down restaurant and a separate carry out location next door.
The Menu
Menus would be a more appropriate heading. At the sit down restaurant, Payard offers four meals a day: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a late night dessert tasting menu that offers some unusual choices among the more mundane. For breakfast choices include eggs, quiche, croque monsieur or madame, or a simple continental breakfast buffet. For lunch and dinner you can also get soups, sandwiches, pastas, and a few more ambitious dishes. Late at night, there's an intriguing three course prix fixe dessert menu, with some unusual choices among the standards. Of course, pastries are always available.
The carry out location offers an abbreviated selection, but there are still a lot of choices. To me, pastries are the most compelling choices.
The Atmosphere
Very informal. The sit down restaurant was very small, with a few tables surrounding a small food preparation area; there was room for about 30 people. Service was fast, friendly and efficient.
The carry out store was a marvel of disorganization. There was a long counter, with displays of food on the left, cash registers in the middle, then coffee and more food on the right. Get in line at the cash register to order, then move to the right while you wait. There were a few tables just outside, but they were usually taken during busier times. Many people didn't know this was the process, and even those who did couldn't figure out exactly where the line should be. It also wasn't made clear that one should move to the right after ordering, so the ordering line and the waiting areas tended to intermingle, along with browsers who were simply trying to get a look at what was inside the display cases before they got in line. Pretty chaotic.
The Carry Out Store
My introduction to Payard was at the carry out. I ordered pain au chocolat and an almond croissant. The pain au chocolat was a typical rectangular pillow shape. The dough was crackly crisp on the outside, but moist and chewy on the inside. Little rectangles of very good dark chocolate were generously spread within. It was very good. Most almond croissants I've had have been similar to regular croissants, but with a hunk of marzipan in the middle and some sliced almonds on the top. Payard's version was different. Almonds and marzipan were mixed throughout the dough. The result was a flaky but much denser version. It was delicious! I also ordered a latte...but got plain black coffee...not a happy camper. However, the coffee was perfect for me: smooth and mild.
I came back several times for pastries and such. The Vienne ("flaky sable with dark chocolate mousse, orange marmalade and a soft caramel center") was excellent. Nearly as good was a big cookie that I've heard called a Swiss chew; it's made with chocolate, nuts and meringue, resulting in a crunchy/chewy/moist combination that is hard to describe but hard to forget.
Late one evening, I ordered one of those delicious almond croissants and took it back to my hotel room. It was stale. Not just a little bit dry. Stale. Hard. Really stale. I guess I should have known better than to order a breakfast pastry at night, but it's inexcusable for a place such as Payard to sell such trash. Major demerits.
Yet another carry out excursion found me ordering a croque monsieur. This is the French version of a grilled cheese sandwich, with the addition of ham. The cheese (Gruyère, I think) was on top of the bread, and toasted until almost crisp - too much so, I thought. The ham was chewy and good; the bread likewise. I had expected Béchamel sauce on top, but it wasn't included in this version. Overall, a good sandwich, but not in the same class as the one served at Bouchon.
Meals at the Restaurant
I had previously tried a croque monsieur at the carry out, so I decided to try a croque madame. It was indeed the same as the carryout's croque monsieur, but with the expected addition of a poached egg on top. Again, no Béchamel on this version. Again, good but not in the same league as the excellent version at Bouchon. One nice touch: a few bitter greens with vinaigrette on the side - a nice foil. Café was very good. As at the carryout, the coffee had a nice mellow flavor; sugar wasn't even needed.
Another visit found me trying their continental breakfast buffet. This is a very simple affair, with cereal, yogurt, lox, bagels, cream cheese, and their excellent Viennoiserie (croissants and such). Come hungry!
Summary
Baked goods of almost any kind are excellent at Payard Pâtisserie - at least in the morning. Breakfasts are also good, albeit simple. I need to eat a few more pastries, and give them the chance to eliminate the hiccups that are inevitable at a newly opened shop, before I decide if it's the best of breed in Las Vegas, but it might well be. If they could just get their carry out more organized, and stop selling stale croissants at night...
The Bill
Pastries are around $4 each for croissants and the like, and around $6 for the fancier tarts, eclairs and such. A latte will set you back $4. Expect a full breakfast at the restaurant to run around $20, plus tax and tip.