Aux Merveilleux de Fred
Frédéric Vaucamps reworked the merveilleux until it was very light. The shop says he named his Lille store after the cake in 1997.1 This is the Eighth Avenue shop in the West Village.4 The company builds the cakes in an atelier inside each store, in front of the counter, and bakes all day.1
Why go
Frenchly describes the merveilleux as a layered meringue cake, usually with whipped cream and chocolate through it.3 The name comes from the Merveilleuses and Incroyables of Directory Paris, who dressed to be looked at over tea and cake. The mirrors and the gilding in the shop come from the same place.1
Le Merveilleux is the classic, L'Incroyable is white chocolate and L'Impensable is coffee. L'Excentrique is cherry, Le Magnifique is nut, Le Sans-Culotte is caramel. Six flavors carry the same joke through.3 The cramique is the other reason to come, a Flanders brioche the shop bakes alongside the waffles.1
Antoine Jacques runs the New York business now.3 Sizes run from a mini to an individual to a cake you cut.2
Order this / avoid
- Order: Le Merveilleux, the plain one, first.3
- Order: L'Impensable if you are also having coffee.3
- Order: a cramique to carry home.1
- Avoid: the cake size unless you have people.2
What locals & experts say
- Antoine Jacques, President and Baker of the New York business, to Frenchly (10 November 2021), on what Vaucamps arrived at:
lighter, airy cakes with melt-in-your-mouth meringue.
3 - Time Out New York had the West Village shop in its bakery listings by June 2017.4
- The limit: I have not found a New York critic who has reviewed this shop.
Good to know
- Where: 37 Eighth Avenue, in the West Village.4
- Other doors: a Midtown shop trading as Marvelous by Fred at 1001 Sixth Avenue,3 and an Upper East Side shop on Lexington Avenue.
- The range is the same everywhere, by company policy, so what you find in the West Village is what Lille sells.2
Verdict
could-visit — Nothing here is booked. Buy at the counter and walk out with it.