During the height of the pandemic in 2020, Thibaut Leymarie and Marine Le Faucheur opened Sweet Lily Bakery.
While it was a challenge, they were happy to have found such a beautiful location in Studio City along Cahuenga Boulevard.
“Everything is homemade and fresh from scratch in the morning, so the staff comes at 2 a.m. every day,” Le Faucher explained. “I feel like they can tell when they eat the bread, the croissants, or the pastries that they are made in the morning. You’re never going to get something from the day before. This is just against what we believe.”
Their top menu item is their chocolate éclair.
“We make a really good cream on it. It’s not like pastry cream and cocoa. We mix a lot of things to have the best éclair,” Leymarie explained.
Le Faucher chimed in that their dough is also an important component because, “When you eat an éclair, it has to be the perfect combination, you know, not too heavy, not too light.”
Since it is a French bakery within the San Fernando Valley, they do pay homage to California by adding avocado toast. They also added a salmon croissant, because Le Faucher makes it for Leymarie every morning.
They straddle the line between France and American cuisine.
“We try to keep it some French (but French) people are like, ‘Oh, you guys are too Americanized.’ And the American people will say we’re too French, so we just try to find the balance between both,” Le Faucher said.
While the couple say it’s not easy to please everyone, they do feel they’re doing a “pretty great” job.
“You work so hard seven days a week, waking up very early. But it all makes sense when you see customers coming and telling you thank you, or French people saying, ‘Oh, we finally have a place like back home.’ So that’s where we’re the most happy and proud of, I guess, trying to make the best out of our time in America,” Le Faucher said.
While Leymarie has 26 years of experience as a pastry chef and baker, his early education came from his family. It wasn’t until he was whipping things up with his grandmother and mother that he realized this is what he wanted to do.
While he owned two bakeries in Paris, his dream was to come to the United States and do the same thing.
He did learn a great croque monsieur recipe from his dad that he shared with California Cooking. He topped the recipe with an egg, which makes it a croque madame. The item is also one of the eatery’s best-sellers.
This segment aired on California Cooking with Jessica Holmes, Episode 193.
Croque Madame
Courtesy: Sweet Lily Bakery
Ingredients:
Brioche bread
Sour cream
Heavy cream
Shredded mozzarella
Parmesan Cheese
French imported “jambon de Paris”
Egg
Instructions:
- Combine 2 heaping tablespoons of sour cream with a splash of heavy cream, mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Mix together.
- Spread a layer of sour cream mixture onto one slice of bread. Top with a few slices of ham, then spread a little more of the sour cream mixture over the ham. Place another slice of bread on top and spread more of the sour cream mixture on upper side. Finish by sprinkling shredded mozzarella and parmesan cheese over the top.
- Add sandwich to cookie sheet and bake in oven for about 10 minutes, until bread is toasted and cheese is golden.
- Add a sunny side egg on top.
- Bon Appetit!
