“We are sold out! Thank you so much everybody!!!!” Former Gramercy Tavern pastry cook Lauren Tran types out the note and publishes the update to her Instagram feed. Months into the venture, Tran, 32, still can’t believe customers often snap up her $40 pastry boxes within hours of posting her weekly menu for Bánh by Lauren, her Vietnamese-French pastry business, on Instagram.
On a gray, snowy Monday in mid-January, with customers anchored to their apartments and scrolling through the app, Tran’s macarons and banh bo nuong a chewy, striated Vietnamese pandan honeycomb cake are irresistible. While customers light up Tran’s DMs to see if they can squeeze onto her waitlist, she’s plotting out her baking schedule for the next five days. Over 60 cumulative baking hours, she’ll make 80 langue de chat biscuits, 320 macaron shells, and five to six whole cakes. She’ll also test her recipe for banh bo nuong at least five times before getting up at 6 a.m. on Saturday to bak
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Untitled, the nearly decade-old Union Square Hospitality Group restaurant attached to the Whitney Museum, is permanently shutting down, according to a USHG spokesperson.
The American art museum is converting the Untitled space into a temporary, quick-serve pop-up spot called the Whitney Cafe, which will be run by Union Square Events, according to the spokesperson. The new grab-and-go cafe will stock a variety of prepared foods, including sandwiches and salads, pastries, coffee, wine, and beer. Union Square Events will also stay involved with the museum as the Whitney’s exclusive catering partner, the spokesperson shared with Eater.
It is not clear how long the Whitney Cafe’s run will last, or what will come next for the space after the pop-up is done.
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