New Orleans Wakes Up To A Surprise As Sucre, The Upscale Dessert Company, Shuts Down

Sucre, the confectionery company with an eye-pleasing collection of dessert boutiques, become considered one of New Orleans’ publish-Katrina achievement memories.
Founded in 2006, Sucre offered imaginative pastries, thrilling gelato flavors and goodies, and a completely unique King Cake with a shimmering glaze that became regularly featured on national television.
Its three stores, on Magazine Street inside the Garden District, within the French Quarter and in the upscale Lakeview neighborhood, gave the impression of French patisseries, adorned in an awesome faded inexperienced.
They were gathering places for anyone from any heritage who loved chocolates.
So on Monday, the Crescent City was surprised to hear that Sucre had shut down. A word on its website examine:
“To Sucre fans and supporters,
“It is with deep sadness that we should announce the closing of SUCRE as of Monday, June 17, 2019. Throughout the years, we’ve got preferred every one of you. Your smiles and patronage were valuable. Thank you for your commercial enterprise and your support. Know that the Sucre’ Family holds you pricey. Stay Sweet!
“Please Note: Sucre will work diligently to go back charge for any order that has been placed on our internet site in the remaining 72 hours. These orders will now not be processed and all funds could be lower back to the purchaser. We thank every one of you once again.”
Sucre’s choice to close came nearly a year after the confectionery business enterprise changed into in the news for a sexual harassment scandal concerning its unique chef, Tariq Hanna.
Hanna resigned from Sucre in August. And in December, the New Orleans Times-Picayune stated that several girl personnel had made sexual harassment lawsuits approximately Hanna, who become one of the maximum-profile figures inside the city’s meals world.
The allegations brought to thoughts the 2017 sexual harassment scandal involving John Besh, another well-known New Orleans restaurant discern who has severed his ties together with his employer and his foundation.
Besh had now not been visible a good deal in New Orleans given that then, till he joined other cooks closing week to wait for a memorial carrier for Leah Chase, New Orleans’ loved restaurant owner and civil rights suggest.
In Sucre’s case, the allegations against Hanna got here after the dessert enterprise had built a national mail order commercial enterprise, boosted by using its King Cake.
It furnished grocery shops including Whole Foods, which stocked its sweet bars in its test-out lanes, in addition to its neighborhood operations.
Its lineup featured French-fashion macarons, in seasonal flavors including blackberry lemon, watermelon, and lavender honey, as well as particular chocolate bars, together with darkish chocolate with rose petals, and candy field goodies with New Orleans-style flavors.
The pastry case blanketed man or woman cheesecakes, salty caramel chocolate cupcakes and indulgent desserts, often topped with macarons or its housemade candies.
Sucre held occasions, like one in June 2018 that featured champagne, chocolate and macron pairings and ones in which kids may want to beautify cakes for his or her parents.
Sucre was additionally regarded for its gelato, which changed into served into the late hours, making its cafes a final forestall for locals and visitors after dinner.
Shortly before his departure, Hanna was one of the cooks who took part in a lavish dinner at Antoine’s to mark the three hundredth birthday of New Orleans, put on by using the Times-Picayune’s restaurant critic, Todd Price.
His dessert featured a cane syrup mousse, with caramelized bananas tucked inside, that changed into observed by way of bittersweet chocolate rose that was gilded on one aspect, topped via certainly one of Sucre’s signature macarons.
One of Sucre’s most formidable ventures turned into Salon by way of Sucre, on Conti Street within the French Quarter. It at the beginning featured craft cocktails and appetizers, further to Sucre’s lineup of candies.
Downstairs centered on candies and coffee; upstairs become a stylish lounge with 12 seats on a balcony overlooking the region.
Joel Dondis, the restaurant entrepreneur who released Sucre, however, has in view that divested his hobby, described Salon in 2015 as a reflection of the next era of New Orleans. “The reconstruction, post-Katrina, is achieved,” he says.
And now, so is Sucre’s position in it.