Ever since the pandemic, bakeries are having a renaissance.
And Lucie Eloi Rizzi, the French-born baker and founder of Hampton Bays popup La Famille Bakery agrees. Born and raised in the Périgord — a quiet corner of the French countryside just outside Bordeaux, and heavily revered for its world-class gastronomy — Rizzi understands the importance of creating a sense of community, an effort she hopes to continue with her French-technique driven pastries and baked goods.
“I always baked and I always cooked,” she says, growing up working in her parents’ small, farm-to-table restaurant. Eventually, when she got older, Rizzi moved to New York where she says she “worked in the hospitality industry for a long time” before moving to the Hamptons during Covid.
“Because I grew up with my parents having a restaurant, we were always hosting and cooking,” she says on how she became inspired to start her own bakery business about a year ago. “I thought I could sell some croissants at a local farmer’s market, or something like that, just see how it goes with literally no plan with the idea of ‘if I can sell six croissants that would be fun.’ I’m making it at home anyway, so that’s really how it started.”
Rizzi got her start selling her pastries at farmers markets and at Farm & Forage in Southampton before switching up her business model to a pastry pickup/delivery format. (Photos courtesy of Lucie Eloi Rizzi)
Last year La Famille Bakery made its debut at Farm & Forage in Southampton. “It went super well,” Rizzi says. “People were generally interested and loving what I was making. From there I knew, very clearly, I wanted to make a really good, quality product using French flour, French butter and seasonal ingredients found here.”
And so far in the first year of her bakery’s been in existence, Rizzi has been able to keep that mantra. Butter croissants are carefully hand-laminated with Isigny St. Mère butter, while the pain au chocolat is filled with rich Valrhona chocolate. “I’m still very much connected to France, and it’s still very much what I love,” she says. “I always go back to it and it’s what I’m bringing here with me, what I’m making. It’s what I grew up with, what I like to eat.”
In addition to about 100 or so classic croissants ($5 each) and pain au chocolat ($7 each), weekly offerings typically include between 15 and 20 tarts and cakes, highlighting fruits and produce that are currently in season and readily available. Some recipes are inspired straight from Rizzi’s upbringing in France while some are more modern recipes curated to Rizzi’s evolved taste. Yet, beyond the bake, Rizzi looks to bring people a sense of joy through her handcrafted products
“I think, during Covid, it allowed people who were bakers to think that they could have a different lifestyle or do something else by just doing it on their own. And also, I think that for sure opened the door that you don’t necessarily have to work every day at 3 a.m. in a bakery, you can also do something else with it,” Rizzi says. “Also, like people want to, they probably don’t have as much money as they used to, but they want to spend money on something and makes them feel good, and that is still quite an affordable product, in a sense, right? You’re spending five or 10 bucks and you have an amazing muffin or a croissant, that makes you feel good, right?”
Pre orders open every Sunday at 9 a.m. for next Saturday pick up or delivery. Pick up is at Honest Plate at 105-5 W. Montauk Highway in Hampton Bays and delivery reaches from Hampton Bays to East Hampton.
