Too often, indulging in pastry ends in disappointment.
The sweet something that shimmered so invitingly behind the bakery case fails to taste anything like it looked.
For those tired of too-tough croissants shrink-wrapped in plastic, for those craving one obscenely smooth, rich chocolaty sliver of ganache: You’re in luck. Tucked at the edge of Silver Lake in Everett is a bakery that will give you pastry palpitations.
The L’Artisan French Bakery Cafe doesn’t look special, situated as it is in a strip mall with a dry cleaner and chiropractor’s office.
But it is.
This is the home of a master pastry chef, Jacky Lichtenthaler, a Frenchman all the way to the tips of his mustache.
The bakery specializes in traditional French favorites: tarts, cakes, eclairs, turnovers, croissants, cream puffs and a Napoleon tasty enough to satisfy even its namesake. There’s bread, too: baguettes with white pillowy centers; miche, crusty round loaves; brioche, rich with butter and eggs; and sandwich rolls.
L’Artisan will create custom cakes, wedding cakes and seasonal creations, such as the popular buche de Noel or yule log, a hand-rolled, filled cake. The bakery sells some Valentine’s Day specialties, including individual fresh strawberry tarts, passion fruit mousse cups, chocolate mousse cups and Bailey’s mousse ganaches.
What they don’t make are doughnuts. The bakery is happy to point people toward the Safeway or the Fred Meyer down the street if that’s what they want.
Lichtenthaler, 51, a native of Strasbourg, France, studied pastry, bread, chocolate and ice cream at a French technical college for five years. He worked in New York before moving to the Northwest to make specialty cakes and breads for Gai’s Bakery and, later, pastries for the Tulalip Casino. A desire to run his own shop inspired him to open L’Artisan in 2004 with wife Rosanna, a Long Island native.
The European training instilled in Lichtenthaler a high level of precision and artistry, said pastry chef Kevin Thompson. He works at L’Artisan and has known Lichtenthaler for 17 years.
The Frenchman insists on using only the best ingredients. He handpicks the fruit for his tarts at the market so they’ll look and taste just so. He buys the freshest butter, cream and milk from a dairy in Kent. The chocolate is from Belgium, the smooth stuff with lots of cocoa butter.
Everything is made from scratch: the silky custard, the flaky puff pastry, the petite, colored candy flowers on the tiered cakes. He uses no oil, no lard, no shortening. Nothing but glorious, full-fat butter graces his bakery – a whopping 21/2 pounds in 4 pounds of croissant dough. No preservatives go in the bread.
After working a 12-hour shift that begins at 2 a.m., he returns in the evening to create the starter for the next day’s bread. A longer fermentation period means he can use less yeast, which makes for better bread and healthier digestion, he said.
The top-notch ingredients, the time he pours into the bakery: It’s all worth it when his customers are satisfied, he said.
“If people say it tastes good, that’s what counts.”
The bakery hasn’t advertised and word of the place has spread by satisfied mouths. The dozens of pastries and loaves of breads for sale each morning are nearly always sold by the end of the day. Some repeat customers drive miles – from Whidbey Island, Arlington and Tacoma – to get their fix.
“I’m amazed when they’re telling me where they’re from,” Rosanna Lichtenthaler said. “And everyone wants us to open a store there.”
The bakery is set up with the kitchen visible through the glass windows facing the parking lot. On a recent morning, a preschooler pressed her nose to the glass, watching as the chef fed lengths of golden puff pastry dough through the sheeting machine.
The little girl’s mother, Sandra Burroughs of Everett, comes here to buy bags of Palmier, crusty cookies made of puff pastry and rolled in sugar. She likes to eat them with her cappuccino.
“I love the flakiness of it,” she said. “I think QFC makes something similar but these taste much fresher to me.”
The bakery cafe also sells sandwiches made while you wait. Here, too, the chef insists on the finest ingredients: Swiss cheese from Switzerland, Brie imported from France, Black Forest ham from British Columbia, turkey breast slices from San Francisco. A lunch special with an individual dessert and a drink costs $8.95. Most pastries cost between $2 and $3 each.
Eventually, Lichtenthaler dreams of expanding his cafe and offering ice cream and chocolates. Finding good help is difficult; and he already works a grueling six-day schedule.
When you go, just plan on saying “au revoir” to your diet.
Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com.
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