Meet SF’s New Obsession: 3D Printed Macarons
HAYES VALLEY, SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco has produced a menagerie of pastry-related fads, from expensive toast to photogenic cruffins. But none of that compares to the newest social media darling to burst onto the scene: 3D printed macarons. Yes, you read that right.
Pâtisserie Mécanique, newly opened in Hayes Valley, offers inspired flavors like honey peppercorn, chocolate seaweed, and pâté for an enormous 9 dollars per 3D printed macaron. Mécanique has substance and spectacle in equal measure: after a customer orders from an iPad at the front of the shop, a line of 3D printers kick into action to construct decorated shells, a gleaming new Frostero machine draws an intricate pattern with a bag of prepackaged “royal” filling, and a robotic arm moves them into an oven and then into the hands of each customer.
Showy technology for spurring hype is in the founders’ blood: Pâtisserie Mécanique was started by a pair of bored techies who sold their company (described as a “Nextdoor for enterprise”) for an exorbitant amount of money. After taking a funemployment trip to Paris and enjoying its menagerie of pastry shops, the two decided to spend their acquisition money on replicating the beauty, warmth, and craftsmanship of Parisian macarons with a garage full of MakerBots in Mountain View.
Despite the exorbitant cost that is sure to be skewered by bloggers, there’s still lines of macaron-loving customers starting at the store and stretching around the block. More important than the quality of the food itself, the food has gone viral: pictures of people holding the macarons in front of the 3D printers are already blowing up under the #3DPrintedMacaron hashtag on Instagram and Snapchat.
“I mean, yeah, the wait time is two hours to be able to buy one of these. And a moderately sized package of these macarons would be enough to pay a month of rent in some other parts of the country,” said one person waiting in line. “But in the end, you gotta do things for the Snaps and the Grams. It’s part of the cost of living in San Francisco, man.”
