Roger Gural has been tormenting workers at 40 Worth with the tantalizing small of baking, as he tests the ovens in preparation to open Arcade Bakery in the building’s Church Street arcade. (The entrance at 220 Church will be unlocked once the bakery opens, which could be as early as next week.) Gural has serious baking cred: From 2005 to 2007, he was the head baker at Bouchon Bakery in Yountville, Calif.—which also made the bread for the French Laundry—and since then he has been teaching. This marks a return to the neighborhood for him: “My first job was actually as a night baker at Bouley Bakery many years ago,” he write in an email. “So here I am after time at several other NYC bakeries, and in France and Northern California, opening up just a few blocks from where I started.”

The space feels very European, with wooden tables that swing down from the walls. Gural says he plans to offer breakfast pastries (croissants, Danish, etc.) in the morning, moving on to coffee cakes and then lunch, when we can expect pizzas made to order and sandwiches. And of course there will be bread, baked all day long—including baguettes, which we need more of around here.

I’ll write a full report when Arcade Bakery is ready to debut….

P.S. Thanks to the reader who tipped me off to this!

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