Jean-Marc is a third generation baker from Couffé, a small town in Brittany, which is in the northwestern part of France known for seafood and buttery pastries. Though his father and grandfather were bread bakers who owned boulangeries (bread bakeries), Jean-Marc went on to become a pâtissier (a pastry and cake baker).   

He apprenticed four years with Master Pastry Chef George Merlet in Chateaubriant, France and earned Certificat d’Aptitude Professionnelle in pastry, ice cream, and chocolate candy making from Chambres des Metiers in Nantes, France.

In 1983, at age 21, Jean-Marc arrived in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in response to a bakery's ad looking for French pastry chefs.  He soon headed west to Los Angeles and worked in several well known restaurants and French pastry shops before meeting his Pittsburgher wife who promptly insisted they move to Pittsburgh.

He worked as the pastry chef for Pittsburgh’s renowned

La Normande restaurant before opening his bakery in Millvale in 1992.  Just as a gunshot wound during WWII didn't stop his grandfather from finishing his bread deliveries, Jean-Marc has continued to whip up pastries and cakes with great conviction, even through two floods, one which left him with a broken arm. Though his customer base has grown, he keeps his bakery small, more similar to a typical French village patisserie, than a "bigger is better" operation. The special something that customers find in

Jean-Marc's pastries and cakes comes from his ability to meld his French training along with his American culinary experience to produce pastries and cakes that delight sophisticated as well as sensible palates.

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