The French pastry arts have become part of the Vietnamese culinary tradition through the generations, with bakeries turning out masterful croissants next to crackly-crusted banh mi loaves.
Now, the next generation of one local bakery family brings a different take on the idea in Lakeview.
Taylor Bui opened her Chez Pierre French Bakery at 141 W. Harrison Ave., joining a snug neighborhood business corridor that has drawn a new mix of eateries lately.
It’s part of the Chez Pierre brand that Bui’s mother, Katrina Tran, has built up into a four-location mini chain in Metairie and Harahan. For Bui, who is 20, this new location represents her own perspective on the family business.
“I know people think I’m still a baby, but the bakery is what I’ve known all my life,” said Bui. “That’s why I’m excited to do something a little different with it here and for this neighborhood.”
Taylor Bui developed the latest edition of her family's Chez Pierre French Bakery in Lakeview.
All of the Chez Pierre locations double as bakery cafes, serving breakfast dishes and lunch menus of vermicelli noodle bowls and banh mi stacked with meats and crunchy vegetables. But first and foremost they are bakeries, with custom cakes and pastry as the main focus.
Bui’s own Lakeview Chez Pierre flips this equation. She sees it as a neighborhood café with its own bakery, and she believes that's the right niche for a neighborhood hungry for more eateries close to home.
“I want to keep my mom’s touch but add the next generation,” said Bui. “It’s like a remix of me and my mom.”
Built within the former home of Pizza NOLA, this new Chez Pierre is small but multifaceted. It's designed to be part bake shop, part coffee bar and part Vietnamese café.
Desserts remain a front-and-center temptation, with cases lined with mini cakes; crème brûlée; colorful, gleaming fruit tarts; éclairs; and napoleons. But there are also grab-and-go items for quick meals or snacks on the run, like spicy crawfish pies and meat pies, or bánh patê sô, palm-sized caps of puff pastry filled with what tastes like crumbled pork dumpling filling, scented with ginger.
Chez Pierre first opened in the 1980s as a traditional French bakery. Tran bought it in 2005 and began adding more of her own Vietnamese flavors. She had previously run Lin’s Bakery in Kenner and Frosty’s Caffe, a spot for bubble tea and banh mi in Metairie (which is now run by her ex-husband). With Chez Pierre, though, she created a model she could build on.
The bakery was an extension of home and the center of family life for a single mother running her own business.
During the holiday rush, Taylor would frequently sleep at the bakery on a cot in back as her mother burned the midnight oil to fill orders.
“I’d wake up and start decorating the Yule log cakes, running a fork through the frosting to give it the texture of bark,” Bui recalled. “It’s part of our family culture for everyone to be involved in the family business.”
Tran, looking over the latest Chez Pierre location on opening day, reflected on how her daughter took to the business.
"When she was two, she would be at Frosty's and start busing the tables, putting a towel over her shoulder like other ladies there," Tran said. "By the time she was 11, she was running the register."
For Bui, the bakery’s customers soon felt like an extension of the family business, she said.
“Today, I see people who say, ‘Weren’t you the little girl always doing her homework in back?’ I grew up in the bakery with our customers,” Bui said.
In Lakeview, with a neighborhood of potential regulars in close proximity, she hopes to develop Chez Pierre into a weekend brunch spot along with all the quick lunches and pastry orders.
As her bakery café has taken shape, she’s been watching the neighborhood’s patterns and finding ways to further customize the business.
“You see so many people here walking their dogs,” she said. “So we’ll be making dog treats and dog cakes part of what we do.”
Chez Pierre French Bakery
141 W. Harrison Ave., 504-467-3176
Daily 6 a.m.-10 p.m.
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