What goes into crafting badass baked goods? For Pierre Gatel, pastry chef and partner at Café Breizh, the foundation lies in sugar-inspired stints at Wynn and Encore and with French culinary legends Alain Ducasse and François Payard. But it’s respect that really moves macaron mountains.
“We don’t reinvent products, we make them right,” Gatel says.
This command over ingredients is evident as three different types of dough are created for the cinnamon roll, apple turnover and croissant—each has its own recipe, number of folds and rest time. The five-day process of producing turnovers unites Isigny Sainte-Mère butter-infused puff pastry with sweet heaps of Fuji apples. Only fresh blueberries and hand-chopped, high-quality chocolate stud the insides of muffins and cookies. Gatel also produces savory items he knows well, including Niçoise salad and a lunch staple, the Waldorf chicken salad sandwich.
A similar artisanal approach is employed by his fellow chef (and Breizh, France native) Jerome Marchand for regional standards like crêpes—from the caramel butter variation to cream citron—and genuine galettes using Treblec buckwheat flour and land- and sea-inspired fillings.
These childhood friends-turned-café owners take care not to overwhelm themselves, keeping a small team and slowly unveiling more options like bike basket-worthy baguettes. While everything from the brioche to the brownies deserves the spotlight, it’s the authenticity that’s truly on display.
