'This is what I love': Meet Crystal Kass, the Phoenix pastry chef making Arizona history

The pastries at Valentine beckon. On a sunny Sunday, a line of patrons stretches from the lively Phoenix restaurant's entrance to the charcoal bar counter. That's where the scones piled Jenga style and shiny sticky buns cloaked in caramel await.

Perched on lipped white plates are Sonoran wheat guava and pastry cream Danishes, curry empanadas with potatoes and nopales and shortbread cookies made with blue corn. Before choosing one and discovering the flawlessness of technique, the ingredients intrigue and make selecting just one a challenge.

Crystal Kass is the pastry chef behind them. For her work, she was selected as one of five finalists in the 2024 James Beard Awards, a national competition likened to the Oscars of the food world. The winner will be announced on June 10. That recognition is a landmark moment. No Arizona pastry chef has ever been a Beard finalist.

Donald Hawk, Valentine’s executive chef, stops by to compliment her. “I’m going to roll out the red carpet for her,” he says.

Standing in the acclaimed restaurant's narrow kitchen, she bisects croissants with a serrated knife on the butcher block counter. The pastries crackle and give in to her knife as she saws through without crushing or collapsing them. On her station are plastic containers of pine nuts, simple syrup and pi?on (pine nut) cream, recently removed from an immaculately organized fridge.

Straight dark brown bangs frame her focused face. Full sleeves of tattoos coat her lean arms. On her right arm are tattoos of her previous cats. The ones on her left arm — including a doughnut, pastry bag and cupcake — are dedicated to her craft.

“In case no one knows, this is what I love,” the 36-year-old says.

How Crystal Kass became a pastry chef

Kass was born to Mexican parents in Illinois and raised in the suburbs of Chicago.

As a child, she started baking with her mom and then made chocolate chip cookies on her own as soon as she was old enough to use a stove. “I think 9 or 10,” she said.

She thought baking would remain a hobby and enrolled to study kinesiology at the University of Illinois. But her love for baking ran deeper, deep enough to leave kinesiology behind for Chicago's French Pastry School in 2013, training under Dessert Professional’s Pastry Hall of Fame alum Jacquy Pfeiffer.

Though her creativity drew her to find a profession where she could express herself through cooking, her sweet tooth pulled her toward pastry and baking. After graduation, Kass became a pastry cook at Chicago's Lovely Too: a Bakeshop, where she apprenticed during school.

But it wasn't long before the Arizona weather enticed her away. She was tired of the cold.

James Beard Awards and New York Times honor her work

How she got to Valentine is not romantic.

Hawk needed a pastry chef. Kass applied, looking for an opportunity to refine her lamination skills, crucial to the croissant-making process.

He knew little of her but was impressed by her resume — which included Camelback Inn, Phoenix Public Market Cafe, Sweet Dee's Bakeshop and Persepshen — and wanted to learn more.

"I felt very calm with her," Hawk said. "But there is something that just screamed she would be an incredible fit with the current team."

Three years later, she's racked up recognitions at the restaurant.

In 2023, she was a James Beard semifinalist in the Outstanding Pasty Chef or Baker category. That same year, Eater recognized her among "The Pastry Chefs Defining Restaurant Dessert Right Now." In 2022, The New York Times named her Sonoran wheat pretzel among "25 Restaurant Dishes We Couldn't Stop Thinking About This Year."

'She's very clearly an artist'

When she is done with all the croissants, she takes a brush, dips it in simple syrup, and paints their surfaces. This keeps the croissants moist, as they will be baked for a second time tomorrow.

She finds herself using the very tastes she used to reject as a child in her pastries today.  “I remember growing up, we used to have tres leches cake every single day, and I used to hate it,” she said. “I wanted something with chocolate instead. But now I appreciate it. It brings back childhood memories.”

Case in point, her Churro Morning Bun, which is buttery goodness, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, oozing silky pastry cream on first bite.

Other pastry chefs have taken notice.

"I think it is a huge boost to have her as a pastry chef," the 2022 James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Pastry Chef Mark Chacon said. "And it's very rare that somebody who's that talented is also so humble. She's technically very capable in a variety of different areas, and she's very clearly an artist. Just very inventive way of putting together flavors and appearances."

How Crystal Kass puts her twist on pastries

Kass still finds inspiration from Chicago chefs, both on social media and whenever she goes home for a visit. “I try to stop at a new restaurant or bakery or ones that I love and don’t have the opportunity to go to all the time.”

When she’s coming up with a dessert, Kass first thinks of a local ingredient and then experiments to see what works well with it. “I might look at how chef Donald or another pastry chef has used it in the past and then draw inspiration from the food I have eaten. And then I add a nostalgic twist on it.”

In her tiramisu, she used sarsaparilla soda from Arizona's Own and coffee. “I find something that’s familiar to people and put my twist and Valentine’s twist on it.”

The flan was inspired by her grandmother, who used to make it every holiday, while the banana bread is a variation of her mother’s recipe, which she puts on the menu everywhere she works.

Baked in a banana leaf, it’s sprinkled generously with powdered sugar. The bread’s soft, moist textures contrast with the tiny crunches of cacao nibs, ending with perfect pungency from black cardamom.

Now, each half of her croissants gets a scoop of pi?on pastry cream on top. She spreads the cream with an offset spatula, taking off the extra and pulling the spatula against the lip of the pastry cream container. Only after she achieves a uniform layer to her satisfaction she makes the halves whole and dollops each with cream and a sprinkle of pine nuts. Finally, she covers them with cling wrap.

These will get baked again for breakfast tomorrow, take their places on the white plates and wait for more pastry lovers to make it to the front of the line.

Valentine in Phoenix

Details: 4130 N. Seventh Ave., Phoenix. 602-612-2961, valentinephx.com/menus.

Valentine is a love letter to Arizona: Here's how it won over this skeptical critic

Reach the reporter at [email protected]. Follow @banooshahr on X, formerly Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Valentine Phoenix's Crystal Kass makes history with James Beard