Crystal Kass

Before that Phoenix chapter, Kass studied at The French Pastry School. Her path is spare and practical: formal pastry training, then the kitchen at Valentine, where the title was pastry chef. The work reads through named ingredients rather than broad claims: White Sonoran wheat, piñon, guava, coconut, lime. Each one appears in a specific pastry, not as decoration but as the material around which the dish is organized.

The White Sonoran wheat pretzel became the clearest public marker of her work when The New York Times named it one of the 25 top restaurant dishes in 2022. The recognition fixed attention on a pastry that began with a named grain and ended as one of the year’s most noticed restaurant dishes. Another piece, the piñon croissant, was built as a twice-baked White Sonoran wheat croissant with piñon frangipane. In those two dishes, the same wheat appears in different forms: one as pretzel, one as croissant, each carrying its own structure.

Restlessness is part of her own rhythm. “I can’t really turn my brain off ever. I feel like I never stop thinking about what’s next, what I have to do, what would I like to do.”

Alongside the pretzel and piñon croissant are the guava cream Danish and the coconut and lime sugar swirl bun. The list is concise, but it has range: wheat, nut filling, guava cream, coconut, lime, sugar. One dish carries White Sonoran wheat in pretzel form; one folds piñon frangipane into a twice-baked croissant; one brings guava into a Danish; one pairs coconut with lime in a sugar swirl bun. Kass’s work at Valentine is best understood through that material specificity, with each pastry named by what it contains and how it is made.