Review: Tom Cat Bakery, made in LIC
New Yorkers love their bread and want the best. Many have had bread products from Tom Cat Bakery with their clients at New York’s four-star restaurants, famous hotels, leading sandwich chains, premier retailers, and more. We had the golden opportunity to try their fine products at an event in NYC especially their new product, German Pretzels.
Tom Cat Bakery has a vast range of products of more than 400 different breads and sweets every day. The company produces Baguettes and Ficelles, Batards, Boules, Burger Rolls, Dinner Rolls, Heroes, Long Rolls, Pullman Loaves, Retail Breads, Specialty Breads, and Specialty Sandwich Breads. They have a variety of dough types like Black, Ciabatta, Cranberry Raisin Walnut, Dark Rye, Focaccia, French Country White, Grissini, Handmade Pretzel, Honey Wheat Grain, Italian, Miche, Olive, Parker House, Brioche, Rye, Semolina, Sourdough, Whole Wheat, and 7 Grain. They do not use any partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, shortening, or margarine. There may be some trace fats– less than 0.5g per serving. Their popular fresh breads were chosen by Le Bernardin, Jean-Georges, Bobby Flay and other well known chefs.
Given the difficulties of retail, Tom Cat does not have their own retail outlet. Instead, they focus all their energy on baking and delivering the best bread. They partner with most specialty retailers in the NY metro area.
The company was started in a garage in a 1,300-square foot building by Noel Labat-Comess. Now the company is nearly 30 times the size of that with 40,000 square feet here. They produce 20,000 pounds of bread a day. They have a whole city block under the 59th Street bridge in Long Island City.
Tom Cat makes authentic French, Italian and specialty artisan bread 24 hours a day, and delivers it within hours of being baked.Their trucks are on the street from midnight to late afternoon delivering freshly baked products in a 150-mile radius of NY. More about the company and their products can be found at tomcatbakery.com.
