Food on the Fly
By Marie-Jose Daoud
Maury Rubin is the founder of City Bakery and Birdbath bakeries chain. Photo: Marie-Jose Daoud.
Maury Rubin has a sweet tooth, a surprisingly firm handshake, and a hard time holding still, even to eat.
The founder and owner of City Bakery near Union Square, Rubin is one of a group of local bakers credited with the revival of good bakeries in New York City. “When I opened City Bakery in 1990, the pastry chefs in NY were tired and uninspired,” he said. “They were the second and third generation of family businesses. But one thing was clear to me: New Yorkers love desserts and good pastries.”
As does Rubin, who nibbles his way through the day – a broken edge of a coconut macaroon, a bite of a potato-and-cheese sandwich he’s presenting to a catering client, a juice from the bakery’s juice bar, a coffee. He is intent on not eating after 4 p.m., in an effort to have some balance in his diet – but if he finds a take-out organic roast chicken and coconut water on his way back home, he might break that rule, and eat it while working on the bakery’s budget. His most serious commitment is to breakfast: he tries to start the day on a healthy note, with one of the bakery’s grilled vegetable sandwiches, or some other vegetable-packed meal.
The grilled vegetable sandwich that Rubin often has for breakfast. Photo: Marie-Jose Daoud.
Other than that, all bets are off. There’s just too much to do, and food is constantly in his path to tempt him. Especially coconut, in many forms, for which he confesses a real weakness.
Rubin fell in love with pastries in 1986, on a trip to Paris where he discovered the French neighborhood boulangeries . On a whim, he enrolled in a six-day pastry class near Lyon: “I discovered how much creativity there was on the table, and that’s something that I like to do,” he explained.
At that time, Rubin was a two-time Emmy-award winning sports director and producer at ABC: ” What I really loved about TV was the creative part of it,” he said, “I loved it and lived it and was good at it.”
His new-found passion led him to accept a one year unpaid apprenticeship in a boulangerie on the Rue des Martyrs in Paris, where, he said, “I learned everything.”
He sometimes snacks on leftovers put together. Photo: Marie-Jose Daoud.
He came back to New York – “My life is here,” he said, simply – studied existing bakeries to figure out what he liked and what he didn’t, and convinced investors to help him open City Bakery, in a smaller space near his current 18th Street location, in 1990. Union Square was a “drug area” at the time, he recalled, but he cherished the proximity to the farmers market, similar to the ones he had discovered in France.
“It was very important to me to contribute to the neighborhood,” he said, “to make it a neighborhood bakery. For that, it was essential that we cater for lunch. We started small, with a menu that consisted of two sandwiches, two soups, two salads, two pizzas, all under ten dollars. And pastries.”
As he approaches the bakery’s 25th anniversary, he continues to be a hands-on owner, on the premises almost every day, including weekends. He puts finishing touches on a recipe, carries a tray to the counter, serves customers, logs some time in his office, and deals with administrative chores on the go, on his phone. He now oversees a team of over 130 employees, some of whom have been with him since the beginning.
Rubin confesses to a weakness for coconut. Here, some coconut macaroons. Photo: Marie-Jose Daoud.
He opened the first Birdbath neighborhood bakery in 2005, “a happy accident” that grew out of setting out a table in front of one of his wholesale kitchens; he now has nine around the city, one dedicated exclusively to juices.
The hot chocolate the Bakery is famous for? Rubin barely mentions it, too busy running the place and planning his next venture, which he hopes will be a second City Bakery.
The man who has taken less than two month’s worth of holidays since he began – “At that level, you can call it an affliction,” he said, half-jokingly – has no interest in standing still. If he had the time, he’d travel to Washington D.C. “I think I can manage to escape for a day and half,” he smiled.
See Maury Rubin’s recipe here.
Tags: NYSD2D
Your Comments