I used to live just around the corner from a restaurant called HotChocolate, and when I moved to a different neighborhood nine months ago the hardest thing to leave behind was their brunch. For two years I had made a habit of spending my Sunday mornings at the bar, wrestling with the Times, tearing into fried egg sandwiches with ricotta and preserved tomato, and downing oversized mugs of the restaurant’s thick, eponymous elixir. Eventually, the place had gotten used to me, too—it was one of the only times in my life when I was a bona fide regular.
So when I visited for brunch again last weekend—the first time since I had moved—and found the place packed, I couldn’t help but feel a little possessive. I had moved on but, apparently, brunch for them had never been better. I tried not to take personally the facts that there were no bar stools available, or that Mindy Segal, the owner of the place whose friendly (if slightly neurotic) conversation I usually had the benefit of while I ate, was out of town. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from wondering if I had made a mistake coming back.
But soon we were seated, and our first course—listed modestly only as “sweets” on the menu—was in front of us. Segal is trained in pastry, so not ordering her breakfast breads makes about as much sense as watching a musical on mute. This particular morning we were treated to croissants filled with ricotta and spinach; squares of tender, cinnamon-laced coffee cake; and Danishes with pools of creamy apple butter. Immediately I remembered why I had come back, and I must have looked pretty happy, because the 70-something woman at the next table interrupted my reverie and asked what I had ordered. “That’s exactly what I want,” she said.
Then, as I was polishing off the last crumbs on the plate, a server came by and told the woman that I had snagged the last order. She wasn’t happy; she ordered a paltry brownie to eat with her coffee instead, but she and I both knew it wasn’t the same. As she sat there frowning I could sense her growing determination never to come back to HotChocolate.
So I decided to give her a pep talk, asking her to come back, telling her that I’d been coming there for years. Next time, I swore, things would be better.
It didn’t work. I should have known it wouldn’t. I had tried to summon the power of pastry—but it was all in my stomach.
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