The Pastry Shop

The queen of Algiers celebration tables: a thin crown of smen pastry pinched by hand, filled with orange-blossom almonds and glazed in honey. It stands like a flower.

The chef’s signature

The semolina diamond rich with smen, filled with cinnamon date paste, fried and dipped in honey. Crisp, melting, sticky on the fingers.

The « almond heart » of Ramadan nights: a semolina cake baked slowly with an almond centre, soaked in orange-blossom honey syrup until it melts.

Dough braided into knots, fried light, plunged into honey and rolled in sesame: it crackles, it sticks, it tastes of childhood.

The little Constantine pyramid of almond paste, pinched with a patterned tong, glazed with egg white and orange blossom. No flour at all.

Thirty sheets stretched by hand and buttered one by one, cinnamon almonds and walnuts, baked slowly then flooded with hot honey: the diamond that shatters and drips.

Algiers’ « bare » crescent: a fine, short pastry around an orange-blossom almond filling, only dusted with sugar. Understated, perfect.

Angel-hair pastry gilded in butter as a nest around almonds and walnuts, then soaked in honey: crisp, melting, a little salty from the butter.

The three-pointed stars of wedding tables, smen pastry and almond filling, glazed and decorated by hand with a sugar flower.

Dioul cigars rolled tight around cinnamon almonds, fried light and dipped in honey. You eat three without noticing.

The biscuits in every home’s tin: butter, vanilla and a window of Aurès apricot jam.

Yesterday’s all-butter croissant, soaked in orange-blossom syrup, filled with almond cream and baked again. Breakfast for the happily idle.

An almond shortcrust, a Mitidja lemon curd as sharp as it should be, softened by a breath of orange blossom.

A butter biscuit, a Deglet Nour date cream, a dark-chocolate mousse and a mirror glaze: the South and fine pastry in one slice.

The classic of the downtown Algiers pâtisseries, remade every day: caramelised puff pastry, vanilla-pod pastry cream, a marbled glaze.

Fifty pieces for a wedding’s tables: dziriette, mchekla, arayech, makrout, baklawa, tcharek and qnidlette, arranged in a star on a copper platter. Ordered three days ahead.

The chef’s signature