La Fournette Open In Old Town

By Melissa Wiley in Food on Jul 23, 2012 3:00PM

There’s a new boulangerie on the block, within a raspberry beignet’s throw of Second City in Old Town. While such a delightful shop is de rigueur in the most provincial of provincial towns in France, La Fournette is a coup de maître in our little bustling corner of the world, not least because it expands upon the boulanger’s traditional purview of breads and baked goods and offers more filling fare, including croque monsieurs, tartines, soups, salads, and savory as well as sweet crepes, to sate heartier lunch and dinner appetites.

When we visited the chic, inviting cafe, partner Jacquy Pfeiffer of the French Pastry School stood behind the counter welcoming customers with a matey “bonjour,” while Pierre Zimmerman and Sebastien Canonne were busy restocking the wrought-iron shelves with rapidly disappearing croissants, thoughtfully prepared in periodic small batches to ensure the utmost freshness.

We purchased a multigrain baguette that offered just the right amount of initial crusty resistance to our first greedy bite. If only we had been sporting a dapper silk scarf around our neck and had a rustically woven basket on the front of our bicycle, we would have felt ever so gamine exiting this charming shop with our baguette in hand. A contemporary revival of a timeless European institution, La Fournette is our new local French escape. Magnifique!

La Fournette is located at 1547 N. Wells St.