La Gotta Patisserie: One of the best croissants in Israel

The story of the 16 longest minutes that passes in the north and in the "periphery", in Paris and Ashdod, and includes one particularly naughty brioche

Yaniv Granot

25/05/2022

Wednesday, 25 May 2022, 08:40

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Paris in the 1st arrondissement.

"La Guta Patisserie" (Photo: Gil Aviram)

23 films are screened today on the screens of Cinema City Ashdod - that is, if you do not confuse "Revenge Hour" and "Unrestrained Revenge", between "Playing with Fire" and "Red Fire", and "Top Gun" with Don Draper and "Ahuzat Downton "with the British Don Draper - but I find myself staring at the oven for 16 minutes straight.

It's a modest-sized machine - just wide enough to rotate molds, but not monstrous-industrial - and mostly so new that its front glass lets you watch in HD what you probably already understand is the best film currently being screened in the port city.

16 ... 15 ... 14 ... The minutes pass slowly, as is the habit of minutes in such situations.

13 ... 12 ... 11 ... The molds rotate in a uniform rhythm, agile but not aggressive, dancing their way to the display case.

10 ... 09 ... 08 ... 07 ... The layers of dough expand, separate, rise.

06 ... 05 ... 04 ... It's ready already, no?

How is what I see now unprepared?

03 ... that smell must have made ordinary people open the stove ahead of time, all the time.

02 ... it's only 120 seconds, you can do it.

01 ... 00 ... The gates of redemption open, try to maintain discretion, and good luck.

New morning

Tuscan-Parisian bakery with a Tel Aviv line at the end of the country

To the full article

16 minutes of glory.

"La Guta Patisserie"

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The dough sparkles, glows under the white light of the back kitchen, and is especially perfect for any human being who is not Orly, nor Orly’s showcase

Before I was allowed to peek into the ovens like this, the closest I came to it was a hotel in Zurich, which proudly decided to bake its morning croissants in the center of the breakfast buffet, and place in a cruel bowl next to small jars of Nutella.

Switzerland is everything that is said about it, but an instinctive turn, on the verge of the gods, is also created.

This is how it is with hot pastries probably.

4,140 km away, Orly Katz scolds one brioche who decided to rebel. The buttery dough took advantage of those 16 minutes and came out wild, exaggerated and shaggy

. Eliminates the metal ring around the car guera of carbs, picks it up with both hands, and checks in a disappointed accordion movement what exactly happened here.The dough sparkles, glows under the white light of the back kitchen, and is especially perfect for any human who is not Orly, nor the showcase of Orly.

She approaches me slowly, and I think she's trying to explain the problem to me.

I hear her voice, but the stretching of the dough mesmerizes me into bleeding and interferes with all that is attention and concentration.

"Want to?" She asks.

There's a match.

"La Guta Patisserie" (Photo: Gil Aviram)

As usual in front of bakers, my early hour medal is undivided, and no podium is dragged to the center of the bakery.

Maybe it's something personal against me, maybe it's because Orly herself has been there for four and a half years

I arrive at La Gotta Patisserie at six-thirty in the morning.

The official doors are closed, but the dough opens, and opens, and opens.

As usual in front of bakers, my early hour medal is undivided, and no podium is dragged to the center of the bakery.

Maybe it's something personal against me, maybe it's because Orly herself has been there for four and a half years.

She takes out of the fridge a huge, wide and thick and tall butter rectangle and threatens only if you are afraid of living life, and matches it to the dough.

A mighty machine helps it flatten, and soon (i.e., really slowly, in a meticulous and repetitive and amazing process) there is a match, and there is a buttery dough.

"I was once asked in a job interview if I was Batman or Superman," she recalls, "and I'm totally Batman. I like being behind, doing my job quietly."

This work, it turns out, now includes quite a bit of arithmetic and math, calculating percentages and multiplications, and intensive use of rulers - an accessory that is not usually tied to the eyes that close when the mouth bites into a croissant, but necessary in a bakery.

Discover a new world.

"La Guta Patisserie" (Photo: Walla !, Yaniv Granot)

The pursuit of the "curl".

"La Guta Patisserie" (Photo: Walla !, Yaniv Granot)

Inside I might have hoped they would kick me and put courage in me, but courage sometimes borders on stupidity, and in the end I gave myself the kick

Katz grew up in Hatzor HaGlilit ("I remember when we installed the first traffic light there, and how excited I was that we became part of civilization," she laughs) and moved to Ashdod about two decades ago following her then-husband and husband, and also "one of the great gifts in my life."

She spent those years in "Walking Right When Everyone Went Left," which in more practical terms means creation.

It included electronic music and production, long hours in the studio and also on stage and absorbing.

A sharp turn later led her to a tidy job at the bank, the death of her parents ("my mother had a crazy hand in the kitchen") pushed her to "discover a new world," and what the family tragedy did not, the global epidemic completed.

"The confectionery dried up for me," she recalled, "inside me I might have hoped they would give me a kick and give me courage, but courage sometimes borders on stupidity, and in the end I gave myself the kick."

The piece continues.

Orly Katz in "La Guta Patisserie" (Photo: Gil Aviram)

This is a Parisian island in the heart of the first district of Ashdod, and a place that already threatens strict dietary regimes in both the immediate and remote area.

The result of all this - the process and the creation, the courage and the kick - is "La Guta Patisserie", a Parisian island in the heart of the first district of Ashdod, and a place that already threatens strict nutritional regimes in both the immediate and remote area.

In practice, this means breakfast pastries of course, which come in at a perfect timing for those 16 minutes, so that they come out exactly when the first customers arrive.

And these arrive early, knocking out before eight and calling long before eight, in actions that may delay the craft a bit, but make you stand and wait for a hot croissant that has just come out of the oven, literally.

"As a matter of principle it's best to eat a croissant three hours after it comes out," Orly smiles as she searches for the "curl" - the nickname she stuck to that layer of battered dough that separates from her friends during the prolonged puffing.

She knows by the way, clearly, that there is no chance of this anticipation here, and she also knows that her next action - a bastard press that activates the industrial vent, and sends streams of air full of fresh baking smells to the street - buries any chance for three hours, let alone three minutes.

The shout of the showcase.

"La Guta Patisserie" (Photo: Gil Aviram)

Apart from the pastries - a croissant with a chocolate crown, and one filled with tropical cream based on mango and passion fruit, a caramelized croissant with vanilla cream and salted caramel, and the lemon-yuzu ambassador and what not - you can also find caramelized canola de burgundy and fruit bristles loaded with pistachio cream, "caramel" with seven Chocolate-nut delight layers and showcase desserts are both spectacular and elaborate.

There is "Citron" here, for example (dessert of three types of lemon - yuzu, lime and lemon - with a crispy layer of lemon, soft and lemon cake, lemon confit, lemon cream and chocolate coating), "Lizette" (a combination of milk chocolate, hazelnut and caramel, with Crunch hazelnuts and praline hazelnuts, sponge hazelnuts, milk chocolate cream and chocolate icing and almond chips), Parisian-vanilla flan, "Mont Blanc" auburn, as well as a diverse collection of eclairs and macaroons, the same whipped stuffed cookies that are hard to find in a good French version in our places.

So far.

In addition to the sweets, an interesting savory cut is developing, which now includes a pastry with chives and mushrooms or a ricotta-pesto-zucchini version, which will soon be joined, according to the plan, by an equally successful bread (and sandwiches) department.

Bread soon too.

"La Guta Patisserie" (Photo: Walla !, Yaniv Granot)

The journey continues.

"La Guta Patisserie" (Photo: Walla !, Yaniv Granot)

A few months ago, at the height of the establishment process, for all its pressures and noises, one of the potential suppliers declared to Orly that "the good news will not come from the periphery."

She looked at him in surprise, wondering whether to share with him the story of the traffic light of Hatzor HaGlilit, or to remind him exactly how many kilometers pass between Tel Aviv and Ashdod.

Instead, she chose to ignore, skip and use this story both as an anecdote, and as fuel.

Not to prove them, in my opinion, but to prove to everyone else.

This contempt joined the dilemmas and fears, and especially the demons.

The latter, for the most part, sit on her shoulders as if they had won a "price per occupant" there, raising their heads with every brioche dough that decides to puff a little too much.

"I had some hard points of breaking, I wasn't sure I could, but in the end I managed to get out of it, and even got stronger," she said.

Last night she stayed in the bakery until nine-thirty in the evening.

Her son and daughter, nine-and-a-half-year-old twins, came to help, and found themselves organizing the space and even washing dishes.

"I promised myself that no matter what, I leave here every day for a maximum of seven," she admits, but also confesses at the same time that this promise still needs to be fulfilled.

Nine-thirty yesterday, four-thirty today, seven tonight.

16 minutes and another 16 minutes and another 16 minutes.

The journey continues.

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• croissant

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