The Fougeres pastry chef makes the taste buds salivate near New York

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Greenwich. Nothing to do with the meridian crossing this English city and which indicates the mean solar time. Nor with the neighborhood of Manhattan at New York, at the edge ofHudson. Greenwich, city of 60,000 inhabitants, is located in the Connecticut, about fifty kilometers northeast of Big Apple.

It is here that Raphaël Dequeker and his family have lived for almost two decades. This native of Fougères has just opened a bakery and pastry shop there, the beginnings of which are successful.

A nod to his young age. He who grew up surrounded by cakes and chocolates made in the historic pastry shop of his parents, Jacotte and Pierre, place Gambetta, in Fougères.

“With my brother Géry and my sister Geraldine, we were often in the laboratory helping our parents”.

His vocation was born: he in turn embraced the career of a pastry chef and apprenticed with his father for two years.

Alongside great chefs

Raphaël Dequeker left Fougères at the age of 17 in 1988 and refined his recipes at the chocolatier Jean Millet in Paris. He then worked in a restaurant on the Champs-Elysees. Then another establishment at Antibes, at Monaco, at Courchevel, at The Baule... And rubs shoulders with big names in French gastronomy such as Alain Ducasse and Jacques Maximin.

In 2001, during a vacation in Greenwich to the United States with the parents of his wife, Charlotte, a turning point takes place. Raphaël meets an Italian restaurateur in the city where he does a one-day test. The boss offers him to join the establishment. “That didn’t interest me at all,” remembers the Fougerais. Then, after reflection, the family let themselves be tempted by the “American dream”.

Raphaël Dequeker becomes the pastry chef of Valbella. For 18 years. Until the coronavirus pandemic turns restaurant life upside down. Like the others, Valbella is closing its doors. Raphael asks his boss if he can use the kitchens to bake pastries for customers.

The kouign-amann

The Dequeker family decided to take it to the next level and invest in a small premises located in the center of Greenwich, a “very rich, very bourgeois” town. The December 20 last, they open their bakery, Raphael’s bakery. A family business: the chef benefits from the help of his wife, Charlotte, who continues her other work alongside, but also his three sons (Kelian, Bastian and Titouan) and Hélène, his wife’s mother.

In their establishment, the “Frenchies” concoct a wide range of products: “Lots of breads, baguettes, pastries, pastries, chocolates”. For a few days now, Raphaël has added a Breton touch to it: the “family” kouign-amann. But also “lots of chouquettes” and cappuccinos to take away.

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Their products are a hit.

“Every weekend there is a line with ten to fifteen people. It’s an extraordinary start. The objective is to make this project sustainable ”.

Several local press articles on the bakery also provided a nice showcase for Raphaël’s bakery. “A lot of French people come to see us”.

And Fougères ? “We come back to it from time to time. I hope to return normally this summer ”, predicts Raphaël, who will visit his sister Geraldine and his brother, Géry, living around Fougères.

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