Simone Faure, executive pastry chef at The Ritz-Carlton, is leaving her post at the luxury Clayton hotel to open a French pastry shop called Chouquette. The patisserie will be located at 1626 Tower Grove Ave., on the corner of Tower Grove and McRee Avenues, across the street from Ben Poremba’s wine bar Olio, which The Scoop reported on back in February. Poremba, in fact, is a business partner in Faure’s new venture.
As Faure explained, the word “chouquette” is a variation on the French word “choux,” a type of pastry used to make éclairs and other sweet puff pastry, while the “-ette” suffix is the French diminutive for “little.” Thus, the patisserie will specialize in making small choux, which are oftentimes filled with custard and frequently eaten on special occasions. Customers looking for authentic France on this side of the pond can also expect an assortment of macarons and other breakfast pastries, alongside coffee and espresso drinks from the shop’s coffee bar.
The 20-seat eatery, bedecked to rival the famed Ladurée pastry shops, won’t just be open for breakfast. Plans are to offer high tea in the afternoon and to serve the evening crowd hungry to finish the night with wow-your-date desserts and drinks. (There are plans to acquire a liquor license.) Faure will also continue to do what’s she’s developed a reputation for: custom-made cakes – molded as chic purses, shoes or other other apparel accessories – that elicit wedding guest gasps.
Mark your calendar to head to the reviving McRee Town in October. That’s when Chouquette is expected to open, as is Olio, along with Elia, Poremba’s other restaurant that will sit adjacent to Olio.
This article appears in July 2012.