Published: 30 November 2017
Last updated: 5 March 2024
From Aleppo to New York: This Jewish bakery is hitting the sweet spot for over 200 years (Haaretz)
Josiane Mansoura puts a selection of goodies – thin slices of apricot roulade, pistachio-filled baklava, baklava with mixed fillings, Turkish delight, pistachio-filled kataifi – on a plate and pushes it toward me. “You see how many pistachios there are in each one?” she says with some irritation, as I’ve just asked why the pastries at the Mansoura Bakery she runs are so pricy.
“These aren’t just any desserts. Do you know how much work goes into them? Do you know how much experience there is here?” she asks. “When people buy from us, they’re buying expertise, they’re buying many decades of experience.
They come because they know the name Mansoura from Aleppo and Cairo. They come to us because we have more than 200 years of experience. Because their great-grandfather bought from us. Everything here is original. Even the pastry trays are the original trays we brought with us from Egypt in 1961.”
