Butter. French butter. Butter that has crossed borders.
Immigrant. French immigrant. Someone who has crossed borders.
Those are the two key ingredients of this magical bakery times three on the San Francisco peninsula in Silicon Valley. Mademoiselle Colette is the creation of Debora Ferrand, its owner and founder. Debora was born in Brazil, grew up in France, and has lived in Singapore, Austin, and Atherton. She attended both the École Nationale Supérieure de la Pâtisserie at the Alain Ducasse Institute in France, and the Cordon Bleu school in the U.S., where she developed her talent for creating delicate pastries. While she could be described as a classically-trained French pastry chef dedicated to French basics, there’s no mistaking the influence of her life experiences outside of France.
Debora works with her executive chef, Nicolas Agraz, another French import, whose standards are as high as hers. She says that French butter — which is what she and Nicolas use in making the pastries they serve — contains much more fat than American butter, and therein lies the secret to their baked creations. “For the croissant to be a real croissant, you need the butter to be fat.”
Mademoiselle Colette — named for both Debora’s mother and the French author — is the culmination of Debora’s dream to own a very special pastry shop. All three of her pastry shops have a stylish, sophisticated decor modeled after a Parisian café. All three are clearly the product of Debora’s singular vision. She designed the shops, the decor, the decorations, the important little details, and the menu. Even the teacups are imported from France.
There’s money behind these three bakery shops. I don’t know its source. But Mademoiselle Colette’s original shop, on Santa Cruz Avenue in Menlo Park, is only a scone’s throw from the venture capital firms that line Sand Hill Road. I like to think that with unicorns becoming extinct, venture capitalists are now investing in bakeries.
Mademoiselle Colette is high-end, expensive, indulgent, and well worth it. While many of its customers are lining up to buy pastries to go, it’s also a place to take a table — indoors or out — and linger over a classic French pastry in a sophisticated, French-style shop.
