New York City has attracted a slew of French and Scandinavian pastry shops as wide-ranging as Aux Merveilleux de Fred, Fabrique Bakery and Ole & Steen.
But Marron Pastry is bringing a new style of pastry into the city: Georgian pastry, and we don’t mean from the state of Georgia, but the country of Georgia, a former Soviet republic, now independent, with a population of 3.7 million of about 40% of New York City’s denizens.
David Gorgoshidze is the founder of Marron Pastry, which has four shops in Tbilisi, Georgia, and two in New York City, in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn and one in the West Village that opened in 2022 on Bleecker Street.
Georgian pastry, which offers two styles, is a fast-growing trend, in New York City due to an entrepreneur from his home country.
Though Gorgoshidze is Georgian, he is a patisserie or pasty chef who trained in France at the Bellouet Conseil Paris School of Pastry. In fact, he has held master classes in pastry in many cities in Georgia.
He opened his first shop in 2008 in Tbilisi, Georgia, a compact store of 50 square meters, funded by his parents. But in 2014, he developed a much larger shop in Tbilisi of 14,000 square feet, covering five floors. It now has over 200 employees in its four retail shops there.
He opened its first Marron Pastry shop in New York City in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn on March 7, 2022, after the pandemic was starting to fade. He chose Brighton Beach because of its large Georgian and former USSR population.
Moreover, he says it’s “crucial that our staff lived nearby and the commute is easier. Our pastry chefs are five minutes away from our Brooklyn location.”
Marron Pastry specializes in two types of pastries: French and Classic desserts. Classic desserts are mostly Georgian, simple in structure, and filled with fruits, biscuits and cream. The French desserts are more complex and include mousses, creams, pralines and confiture.
Examples of its Classics desserts include puff pastry and Georgian traditional cheese pies. Some of the most popular French items sold are mille feuille, eclairs, pistachio cake from the French line, and berry shortcakes.
Publicizing the Brighton Beach shop was easy because several Georgian TV stations, and TV Rustavi-2 did special reports. Gorgoshidze also has an active Instagram and social media platform, where he is connected thousands of people.
It serves espresso, but doesn’t serve any brewed coffee. “Since our espresso has been so highly acclaimed, we haven’t gone back to changing the menu,” he says.
It doesn’t offer any online ordering or delivery, but is exploring a private courier service for Marron Pastry in both locations.
Its Brooklyn store accommodates about a dozen people, with seating capacity for about 20 people, indoor and outdoor in Greenwich Village.
He’s also considering teaching pastry masterclasses in New York City. “We’d like to invite famous professional pastry chefs around the world, as we do at the Marron Pastry School in Tbilisi, Georgia,” he notes.
Next on the horizon is finding a space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, for the third Marron Pastry’s in New York City. He acknowledges that though much of his expansion was self-funded, banks provided the extra capital to open.
But Georgian pasty is an upward spiral in New York City.