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Mrs. London, Wendy, makes all of our Soup herself and our Baguettes,
Pain de Mie and Challah are made right here in our shop. Our extraordinary
range of Bread comes from Rock Hill Bakehouse, fifteen minutes away, and
from Bakehouse Hill, at our home in Greenwich, NY, the home of the Rock
Hill Reserve Bread.
This Is
Just Like Being in Paris
We also think you'll appreciate and enjoy the unique ambience of our shop.
Many people tell us "this is so European," or "This is
just like being in Paris," but except for our French bread racks,
our furnishings are
strictly American, albeit the America of around 1815. I
wondered for a long time how to come to terms with the décor of
a patisserie in America and not have it look like a stage set, with cardboard
figures of the Eiffel Tower. You get the picture. And then one day on
a walk in Paris I made the connection. All I had to do was, by and large,
furnish our shop in much the same way Wendy and I have been attempting
to restore our 1800 farmhouse in Greenwich, New York. In fact, many of
the furnishings of classic America derive and take their influence from
the 1803 French furniture directories. The wallpaper
in our shop is a wonderful Brunchwig & Fils adaptation of an arabesque
pattern made in France and hung in Connecticut in the 1790's. The mirrors
or looking glasses (one of which inspired our logos)
are all from this same Federal, neo-classic period in America, as
are the schoolgirl silk-on-silk embroideries from Philadelphia. And we
lucked out. Our friend Hugo Ramirez from New York City, probably the foremost
authority on 19th century American lighting, phoned to say that he had
recreated Argand chandeliers for the film Amistad and now that filming
was over did we want them? Voila!
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