It’s a business founded on love and pastries; the love of the Marchesi family for each other and for baking the French patisserie sold in their Robina café, My French Pastries.
Jen and Antonio’s love story began when they were best friends in primary school in France. After 12-year-old Antonio moved to Australia with his family, he and Jen lost touch, reconnecting decades later via Facebook. Long distance correspondence led to romance, the couple marrying and living in France.
While Jen had gone on to start her own business, Antonio shared his father’s passion for baking. Though self-taught, his dad did most of the cooking for their B ‘n B. Antonio became a baker, specialising in French patisserie after he and Jen were married.
When they moved to Australia over a year later, Antonio found work as a baker, however the couple carried the dream of starting their own patisserie following the traditional methods Antonio had learned in France.
They started My French Pastries as a home-based business late in 2016 with a range of only four products, making everything from scratch using French flour, real butter, without preservatives or artificial flavours.
Knowledge of their cottage business spread by word of mouth and the business grew quickly. Soon they began wholesaling to different cafés across the Gold Coast, creating a need to expand their range and to find commercial premises.
In 2019 they were named Gold Coast Best Bakery, the first time the honour has been awarded to a home-based business.
Three years after their business began, My French Pastries opened in the Robina Quays Shopping Centre, proving to be an immediate hit with customers. With only a few savoury items such as quiche, ham and cheese croissant and croque monsieur, their specialty is handmade pastries such as chocolate eclairs, decadent mille feuille, baba au rhum, Paris-Brest, lemon meringue or fruit tarts. Antonio bakes them nightly, croissants rolled by hand ready for wholesale deliveries before the shop opens at 6.30am.
“My favourite time of day is when our first batch comes out of the oven early in the morning,” Antonio says.
Our favourite time is eating one of Antonio’s pastries! A piece of My French Pastries’ authentic French patisserie accompanied by a Supreme Coffee Roasters coffee makes the perfect morning tea or treat. As the saying goes, ‘You only live once. Eat the cake!’
My French Pastries, Shop 5/361 Robina Parkway, Robina Ph: 0499 440 182 Open: Tue – Fri: 6-30am – 2.30pm; Sat: 7am – 2pm