At Work With Rose and Jean-Charles Carrarini

It’s a rare quiet hour at Rose Bakery. The kitchen prep work has spilled into the back dining room. Every inch of countertop is covered with trays of savory tarts and quiches to be filled before the midweek lunch rush begins.

Jean-Charles Carrarini, dressed in a black turtleneck, wipes the flour off a nearby table while his wife Rose floats in and out of the kitchen. Since they opened their organic food store and British canteen on Rue des Martyrs in 2002, this Anglo-French couple has built their reputation on brunch and all things bio.

The Carrarinis previously owned Villandry in the Liberty & Co. Department Store on Regent Street in London. It was a similar operation to Rose Bakery, albeit with more of an emphasis on retail. They eventually sold Villandry to start a new project in London, but the exorbitant rent led them to look elsewhere.

“We were a bit bored…we had done it successfully for so many years,” recalls Jean-Charles, and they decided to start over in his hometown of Paris. They opened their first store in an 18th century building in Montmartre in 2002 -a rustic space with polished concrete floor and a cast-iron framed glass door.

Rose and Jean-Charles won’t take credit for bringing brunch to France. “We arrived and brunch was already crazy in Paris,” says Jean-Charles. However, they did introduce Paris to authentic British fare made with quality ingredients. Scones, pancakes, bacon – “a real brunch,” he says.

The Parisian press also quickly honed in on the organic aspect of Rose Bakery, a label the Carrarinis have been hesitant to embrace. While 80% of their food is organic, they don’t market or define themselves that way like some restaurateurs do in cities like New York and San Francisco.

“France has been reluctant to accept bio” products, admits Jean-Charles. “A lot of restaurants don’t want to spend the money,” he says. However, with Rose Bakery selling many of the organic products it uses, it has added exposure to the organic movement in France.

The emphasis is not on organic, but on “quality, quality, quality,” repeats Jean-Charles. Sometimes they are one in the same, but not always. When a better product is available, Rose uses it, no matter the label –she favors red label chicken over organic poultry, for example. Their bread is always from nearby boulanger Jean-Luc Poujauran, a name synonymous with quality.

Breaking Parisian stereotypes of English food was always the more difficult task. British exports are hardly guaranteed success in Paris -just ask Gordon Ramsay. Staking a claim in the hierarchical, often chauvinistic, food world of Paris is difficult enough for homegrown talent.

But for a British woman and self-taught pastry chef to find such quick success, it is no small feat. Jean-Charles seems especially proud of what his wife has achieved in the kitchen.

Rose Bakery’s success can hardly be dismissed as a novelty. In 2006, they opened another location in the Comme des Garçons store at the Dover Street Market in London. In 2008, they opened a third store on Rue Debellyme in the heart of the trendy Marais district of Paris.

“It’s been an extraordinary journey,” says Jean-Charles.

When asked about what sets Rose Bakery apart from its competitors, Jean-Charles responds, “it’s the closest to home cooking” you can find in a restaurant. He goes a step further, calling Rose Bakery the “reverse of a restaurant.”

While the Carrarinis are always thinking about expanding their business, they hope to “stabilize a bit” this year. Rose is writing her second cookbook, a follow-up to her 2006 book, Breakfast, Lunch, Tea. She’s also starting a vegetable garden in Normandy, which will supply some of the produce for Rose Bakery.

Look for Rose and Jean-Charles to build on their unlikely recipe for success in 2010.

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by Trafton Kenney
Photo by Mateja Smigoc
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