Who makes the best pumpkin pie in Manhattan/Brooklyn

[Ruby]

October is my very favorite month and I always search for good pumpkin pie. Most pumpkin pies to my taste are too custardy, not deep dish enough and don't have that nice ginger-clove balance.

I have noticed that many restaurants (except diners) don't even offer p.p. around this time of year or even nearer to the holidays. The restaurants' reaction is that it's kind of pedestrian for the chef. Instead, they always push either their tiramisu, panna cotta, molten chocolate cake. They're great too but I want this traditional pie.

Any recommendations for restaurants/take-out that feature excellent p.p. will be appreciated.

[Fat Guy]

I wish I had an answer for you, but I don't think I've ever had a good pumpkin pie in New York City. This just isn't a pie town. Pie is one of the few culinary items that is consistently better in diners in the average small Midwestern town than in otherwise good Manhattan restaurants. In general, the best pies I've found in New York City have tended to be at the greenmarkets. I hear there's a great pie place on the way out to Long Island wine country, but the name escapes me.

[sugarpie]

the best pies we always got from les friandises on lexington we went there for 8 years also the best gingerbread  now Im going to call their new restaurant to see if they will make one for us this year or to see if they have it on the menu God it was fabulous it was worth the treck we would make from the west side we miss that bakery terribly. their restaurant is Dalga on East 62nd Street i think.

[sugarpie]

the best pies we always got from les friandises on lexington we went there for 8 years also the best gingerbread  now Im going to call their new restaurant to see if they will make one for us this year or to see if they have it on the menu God it was fabulous it was worth the treck we would make from the west side we miss that bakery terribly. their restaurant is Dalga on East 62nd Street i think.

[Sandra Levine]

Have you tried The Little Pie Company (43rd near 9th Ave and, according to the phone book, also on 14th St. near 9th Ave?  They make a good deep-dish apple pie (not as good as my mother-in-law's) but close.  Maybe they do as well with pumpkin pie.  I'm just suggesting -- I haven't had it.

[sugarpie]

oh no! little pie comany was the worst we tasted this year we did pies last week and theirs was the most institutional tasting of all and the crust was severly overworked.  We arestill waiting to hear from the owner of les friandises at Dalga seafood grill to see if they will do it. If they say yes Ill post it here

by the way the most acceptable we tasted last week was citarellas filling the crust wasnt great but it was better than the other 4 we had bought. As you can see this is sort of a passion with me

[Sandra Levine]

Sorry to hear about the decline of The Little Pie Company.  When it opened, it was good, as I remember.

[Katherine]

When I baked in a restaurant, we made a sour cream pumpkin pie you would definitely say was too custardy. Most customers preferred it to the kind you're looking for, which would explain why the type you're looking for has become unavailable.

[Sandra Levine]

Ruby, you may find that a sweet potato pie comes closer to your ideal than pumpkin.  It's denser and less custardy than the usual pumpkin pie, yet it has the same sweet vegetable quality.

(Edited by Sandra Levine at 8:35 pm on Nov. 4, 2001)

[Felonius]

I had a very light, not too sweet, and extremely pleasing (to my taste) piece of pumpkin pie at Island restaurant (92nd/93rd and Madison, next to Sarabeth's Kitchen) two weeks ago.  It was a special, so not sure if it is still available.  Might be worth a call.

[Steve Klc]

Pat Coston is doing an exceptional pumpkin cheesecake tartlette at Ilo (40 W. 40th Street), with a delicate Linzer dough crust and the tiniest bit of raspberry confit.  The cheese is cream cheese and interestingly, the filling is baked in a water bath, separately, and then added to the tart shell, which has been baked blind ahead of time. It has the requisite clove, cinnamon, nutmeg and demonstrates the difference between what a good baker can achieve--and what a really good pastry chef can achieve.  I'll ask him if we can post the recipe here.

[franklanguage]

Quote: from Steve Klc on 8:26 pm on Nov. 20, 2001

Pat Coston is doing an exceptional pumpkin cheesecake tartlette at Ilo (40 W. 40th Street), with a delicate Linzer dough crust and the tiniest bit of raspberry confit.  The cheese is cream cheese and interestingly, the filling is baked in a water bath, separately, and then added to the tart shell, which has been baked blind ahead of time. It has the requisite clove, cinnamon, nutmeg and demonstrates the difference between what a good baker can achieve--and what a really good pastry chef can achieve.  I'll ask him if we can post the recipe here.

Speaking of recipes...it would be really cool to have a recipe section on eGullet.

I've just adapted my standard pumpkin pie recipe of several years to contain no dairy (for those who are curious - since all of my recent posts contain references to "dairy-free" and "vegan" - I've recently been frightened into quitting dairy products, because osteoporosis runs like a river through my  mom's side of the family, and if I live to be 80, I don't want to be all hunched over. Word is that the calcium in dairy products is nearly useless, because protein from animal-derived sources causes calcium to leach out of your bones. Many of my mother's family are lactose-intolerant as well. (Surprisingly, I'm not, and it may have something to do with having eaten yogurt since I was about 10.)

In fact, my pumpkin pie has made the transition remarkably well, and I've baked several this season. If we had a recipe section, I'd post both the traditional and vegan versions of the recipe, including my award-winning crust.

So, the short answer to "Who bakes the best pumpkin pie in Manhattan/Brooklyn?": I do.

[Steve Klc]

anyone tried the candied pumpkin cube, pumpkin seed, pistachio and phyllo tartlette at Petrossian boutique that was recently mentioned in the Times?