It is 5pm on a Friday when a middle-aged man carrying wooden pallets enters the Belle Epoque pastry shop. The owner, Eric Rousseau, is bringing his Islington team supplies of ‘king cakes’, a seasonal delicacy that French people traditionally enjoy at the beginning of January for Epiphany, a Christian feast day.
Rousseau, who recently turned forty, is one of the few ‘ambassadors’ of French artisan pastry in London, where he arrived 30 years ago. Whilst working for one of the leading French pastry companies Dalloyau, he realised he would never get the chance to manage international teams without speaking English.
“The pastry chef there was fluent in English, Japanese and Spanish, and he told me I would never reach his position without being able to speak English,” he recalls. “It made me upset at myself, because I had ambitions and that’s why I chose to move to London.”
Opening a pastry shop abroad had always been Rousseau’s long-term aspiration. After meeting his wife Hulya in London, to whom he dedicated his signature piece, they decided to open their business in a 18th Century building in Hackney, before opening French pastry shop Belle Epoque in Islington.
All these years later, Rousseau is satisfied with his choice. He particularly enjoys the British capital for its open-mindedness. “My wife is from Turkey, I am French, and no one cares here. There is a certain tolerance in the UK or at least in London that does not exist in France,” he says.
The pastry scene in London has quickly grown over the last two decades. “There weren’t many pastry shops in London when we opened twenty years ago,” says Eric. This expansion puts him in similar territory to French pastry giants Ladurée and Pierre Hermé.
Despite this potential threat, Rousseau seems quite relaxed. He even considers their arrival on the London scene as an opportunity: “They bring with them prestige, economic clout and marketing power. They are those who can introduce new products to the British customers,” he says.
Rousseau says his shop did not sell many macaroons until Ladurée opened an outlet in Covent Garden and popularised them: “then we saw a 200% increase in macaroon sales, without needing to spend a single pound on marketing.”
Brexit, the new challenge
Rousseau attributes the success of French bakeries in the UK to a cultural shift in the kinds of food people want to eat: “people in this country are tired of the poor-quality breads and cakes produced by the industry. Little by little, they are changing their consumption habits and they are more and more aware of what they put into their mouth.”
But Brexit poses a significant challenge to the development of these cultural shifts. Rousseau says his shop has lost 30% of its spending power since the referendum: “for now, we are still doing fine, but we don’t know whether there will be import tariffs at the end of the transition period.”
As a result, Rousseau and his wife are preparing for the worst and will consider changing their suppliers if a deal cannot be found with the EU; but this would, of course, come at a cost.
“Everyone is looking for new suppliers and the prices are thus on the rise. We will therefore have to increase our prices, and unfortunately, our clients will be the first to suffer.”
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