How Peter Zaharatos, Chocolate Artist, Spends His Sundays

Peter Zaharatos, the owner of SugarCube, a dessert and coffee shop in Long Island City, Queens, has recreated company logos, the ruins of the Greek Temple of Apollo, and the Empire State Building, all in chocolate. A violinist-turned-architect and now a chocolate artist, Mr. Zaharatos, 45, uses his 3-D printer to design chocolate molds and plates for specific desserts, complete with moats that catch drizzled syrup and fillings. He lives with his wife, Magda Menounos Zaharatos, 40, who works in marketing, and their two children, Alexandra, 4, and Nicholas, 22 months, in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

EXTREME CLOSE-UP Normally it’s my son who wakes me up — shoving a book in my face, or a toy — around 6:30.

“I go shopping before my own store opens, at a Greek import place, where I can pick up ingredients,” Mr. Zaharatos said. “Sometimes it’s Greek coffee, or a phyllo dough called Kataifi.” Credit Tess Mayer for The New York Times

SPEECH AID Next thing is the morning coffee. Cup of coffee, it becomes a ritual; it’s the thing that my wife and I both have. Without that, we can’t speak properly.

ON THE MENU My 4-year-old daughter’s normally making the breakfast menu. It’ll either be my wife doing her famous pancakes, or my French toast. In the middle of that, I’ll be doing maybe 15, 20 minutes of a 3-D model test in the software Rhinoceros.

Mr. Zaharatos adjusts his 3-D printer outside of SugarCube in Long Island City. Credit Tess Mayer for The New York Times

MUSIC TOGETHER And then I spend some time with my kids, reading and then drawing, and then we play music together. I studied violin for many years, so I have a violin for my 4-year-old, but my 22-month-old ends up playing that one, and then my daughter ends up playing my little violin, my quarter-size violin, from when I was like 9. So then we’re all playing, but maybe someone will be missing a bow, or will want to take mine, and then a lot of screaming begins and then the whole thing ends.

SECRET INGREDIENT I go shopping before my own store opens, at a Greek import place, where I can pick up ingredients. Sometimes it’s Greek coffee, or a phyllo dough called Kataifi. There’s a spice called mastiha. It’s an ancient, ancient tree sap that comes from an island called Chios in the Aegean. When you introduce it into custards, or pastry cream, or bread, it enhances flavors. That becomes my secret ingredient.

Mr. Zaharatos pours chocolate into a mold. Credit Tess Mayer for The New York Times

WORKS IN PROGRESS I’m also an architect, so I do have some residential projects and design projects that go on in Brooklyn. On a Sunday morning, I may stop by to see the progress on one of them.

PURÉES AND PISTACHIOS And then I’ll head into the city to Chelsea Market. I pick up purées and pistachios and hazelnuts from Piedmont, the Italian hazelnuts. Sunday mornings, you can park anywhere. And then I head over through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel into Long Island City, to get to my store.

Some of the chocolate delicacies at SugarCube. Credit Tess Mayer for The New York Times

ROAST Because I lack storage, whatever I make, it’s for that day or the next day, maybe three days maximum. I have a regimen of a few desserts that are repeats. If we’re out of pistachio gelato, I’ll roast pistachios, first thing, for exactly nine minutes. If it’s seven minutes, it’s not enough; if it’s 12 minutes, they taste like peanuts. Those get puréed into a paste with a Greek olive oil. Meanwhile, the dairy’s being heated, and then those are brought together and spun.

IMPROV A lot of my local customers, they’ll bring me an ingredient — maybe some tea from china, or a bottle of prosecco, or a sparkling rosé — and they say, “Peter, will you make something out of this?” And so I’ll make a sorbet.

“Because I lack storage, whatever I make, it’s for that day or the next day, maybe three days maximum,” Mr. Zaharatos said. “I have a regimen of a few desserts that are repeats. If we’re out of pistachio gelato, I’ll roast pistachios, first thing, for exactly nine minutes.” Credit Tess Mayer for The New York Times

FINE PRINT I set up the 3-D printer outside the store. Passers-by are always stopping, asking me, “What is that machine and what is it doing?” By 1, I’ll have a print, and I’ll start working on the mold. That means immersing the 3-D print into a little box that I make out of leftover cardboard, then mixing a food-grade silicon, to make the kind of rubber that’s going to release.

PROTECTING THE PALATE I sometimes don’t eat, or forget to eat. If I do eat, it’s something that’s simple and doesn’t mess with my palate. Greek yogurt, honey, walnuts; things I’ve grown up with. Simple, healthy, something that doesn’t keep me down.

AND ALL THAT JAZZ Sundays are my really kind of wonderful days for the store, because I normally have jazz bands that play there. They show up around 6:30 p.m. By 8:30, I’ve picked up two bottles of a sparkling rosé. I break one open for the band, and then I’ll use the second for a last sorbet. By 9, I try to leave.

SOME LIGHT READING Maybe I’ll have a glass of wine, and pick up a book on Greek Qabalah; or the Athenian navy, and how it relates to democracy.