It’s 8 a.m. in Downtown Los Angeles. The inviting hints of yeast in the air draw a crowd and bring comfort to regulars of Pitchoun, a local artisanal French bakery. A little boy bites into a croissant, pushes the door and walks out with flakes smearing his lips and the corners of his mouth.

The front doors of the bakery-cafe open and a whiff of buttery blend runs through my nostrils. The smell of freshly-baked pastries brings back memories from my childhood in Paris. Inside the open kitchen, a baker pulls out the last batch of bread as his night shift nears its end.

Inside Pitchoun bakery-cafe (photo by Thomas Legrand)

Inside the shop, a lady takes orders in a thick French accent. Displayed all over the counter are dozens of traditional pastries, pies, and classic fluffy viennoiseries. But most of the clients in line choose to start their day off with a croissant or a pain au chocolat.

Pitchoun, an award-winning bakery in DTLA, has become a go-to spot for francophiles seeking out to taste a soupçon of France in the City of Angels.

The interior is adorned with rustic charm, old red brick wall texture and wood accessories. This dessert spot is the keeper of a tradition of craftsmanship with Frederic Soulies, a third-generation baker.

It all started as a love story. He and his wife, Fabienne, met in California when they were undergraduate students. One was from the French Riviera, the other from the South West of France: they fell in love. They did something decidedly unFrench, they decided to chase the American Dream. Their love story evolved into a business opportunity as they settled down in L.A. in 2013.

Their bakery has become a bi-cultural spot where French tradition meets U.S. heritage. If Frenchtown was once the link-up neighborhood of the French community, French-owned businesses are now scattered all over L.A. From Monsieur Marcel Gourmet market in the Grove on La Brea avenue to Lou’s bakery in Burbank, French gems have been thriving for decades.

“We have this European vision of craftsmanship that we value and this is why we wanted to create Pitchoun, not to create another chain, but to show people our traditions,” Fabienne Soulies said.

Consumers seem to value this vision. “We even have people from Santa Barbara coming to us to get an almond croissant,” Soulies proudly explains while pointing out their signature pastry.

When it first opened, Pitchoun’s French traditions hit a brick wall. In the early days of the bakery, Fabienne and her husband were offering Mediterranean products that were traditionally found in the South of France to their customers, like pissaladiere. “After a few years now, we see that we can’t be too authentic because people won’t buy things that they don’t know or haven’t heard of,” Soulies explains.

Traditional baguettes on display at Pitchoun (photo by Fabienne Soulies)

Soulies acknowledges: running a foreign business in the U.S. is challenging. And the main reason lies in France and America not sharing the same culinary heritage. So what makes the bakery a multicultural hot spot for foodies? The secret seems to lay in finding a balance between traditions.

“The French community comes to us because they’re craving authentic French products. They come for brunch or to buy a baguette, for example. But you also have American people, whom we do a lot of catering for, who are francophile or educated and seek a certain form of elegance. And they come to us because they know that we’re French and we can provide that.”

But, amongst the plethora of authentic French bakeries are fakes.

There is a wholly different category of competition in Los Angeles, including Asian-owned French bakeries. Los Angeles is famous for unexpected and sometimes sophisticated culinary fusions, but these K-bakeries are something different.

Tous Les Jours bakery franchise in L.A., with locations in Little Tokyo or Koreatown, is a combination between French and South Korean traditions that sell plastic-wrapped delicacies “to-go” style.

I visited their location in Koreatown, inside the California Market, a grocery store and food court that offers traditional Korean goods. Their section is adorned with signs in French like “Boulangerie” or “Patisserie fine,” Next to an assorted selection of macaron flavors are Korean treats like honey cheese mochi pancakes and red bean bread.

“We are a Korean bakery. French people don’t really come here,” an employee of the brand, who asked to remain anonymous, explained. The clientele, she notes, is “mostly Asian people.”

While this fusion concept isn’t likely to fool consumers into thinking that the brand offers artisanal French pastries, such a bastardization of French branding might come at a cost.

“If a brand misrepresents itself, and consumers deem this as inauthentic behavior, it will have a negative effect on those who value authenticity. Today, authenticity is important to many consumers,” USC Marketing Professor Joseph Nunes said.

Faux-French bakeries use French branding while French-owned bakeries don’t resort to it.

Sweet Lily is a French bakery-cafe with two locations, in Hollywood and Culver City. “We originally had a French name. It was called Paris To You,” owner Marine Le Faucheur said.

“People around us said that it was cliche to have Paris in the name, so we had to think of something more personal. That’s how we came up with our name,” Le Faucheur said.

Her husband, Thibaut, is an accomplished pastry chef who owned two bakeries in Paris, who were awarded “Best Chocolate Eclair of Paris”. Thibaut sold his two parisian bakeries to open his business in L.A. Even though they were experienced –Marine had worked in the food industry before, nothing could have prepared them for the big move.

“Even though he had experience running a bakery, it’s totally different to how we do it here. First, the products are different. Second, the clientele is not the same, and is not used to the same flavors. We also wanted to work with people from France so we had to fund visa requests. That’s really expensive, especially because we have to renew them every three years, but it’s necessary if you want to provide the best customer service possible.”

“Paris Baguette owns over 4,000 units worldwide. They brand themselves “your neighborhood bakery-cafe”.

The first location opened in 1986. Within nearly four decades, Paris Baguette has become the leading bakery-cafe chain in the market.

The bakery-cafe franchise offers the promise of “fresh bakeries, warm breads, and crafted coffees,” according to the company’s webpage.

But Paris Baguette isn’t a French company. It isn’t American either. The corporation is based in Seoul.

So, is Paris Baguette an authentic brand?

“Authenticity refers to the extent to which consumers perceive a brand to be genuine, transparent, and consistent in their communication and behavior,” Dr. Cathrine V. Jansson-Boyd explains in Psychology Today.

“In this kind of chain, all the products are frozen and the quality is not there,” Soulies assures. On the opposite, Pitchoun bakes fresh batches every day.

That’s where passion and business, authenticity and profit clash in her eyes. “All of these companies are profit-oriented. And that’s the difference with what we are. We’re quality-driven, of course we need to make profit to stay afloat but we’re not profit-oriented. We're passionate people. We love developing new desserts every month. We live out of a passion ”

Fabienne Soulies prides herself on running a small business. “We’re not guided by profit, we’re guided by quality.”

“We are a French bakery, but a real French bakery, not like the other so-called French bakeries,” Soulies said. “We really try to educate people with the French taste.”

So, how does it impact the consumers’ experience? “Oftentimes, believing something a priori affects the experience,” Pr. Nunes says.

Pr. Nunes cites the example of tasting two different bottles of wine: an expensive bottle and a cheap one. “People believe a $100 bottle of wine is better than a $10 bottle, and if they taste the same wine (unknowingly), but believe it is a $100 bottle, it seems to taste better. This is because our beliefs can affect our experiences,” he says.

Similar psychological effects apply to the consumers of faux-French bakeries, he argues.

None of this means that French bakers don’t want to do good business and perhaps even expand to other locations—but it needs to be done right in their eyes. “We want to remain an artisan and keep this tradition of craftsmanship,” Fabienne Soulies claims.

“I would say that the limit to how much you can expand your business is geographic. You need to have the pastry chef, the bakers, the people in the same spot to have everything made fresh. You can’t open a new unit too far away because you still need to be able to bake at one location and supply the other stores everyday.”

But some French-owned food chains still strive to rely on authenticity and tradition, and expand. Maman bakery, based in New York City, opened their first location in Soho in 2014. Since then, it has grown to over 30 locations across the East Coast. But the expansion of the family business hasn’t been based on lowering the quality of their products, according to Camille Hennart, French expat in NYC and event coordinator for the company.

“We have many locations in New York City or D.C for example, but we still manage to offer an authentic experience to our customers,“ she said. “That’s where having a French owner and a team of people who share the same culture truly shows. As a chain, you need to know your values and what customers seek when they come to you, especially if you’re looking to grow as a company. We have developed a strong company culture and we offer the same quality standards at any of our locations.”

Sweet Lily has opened a second location in Culver City. While the company now operates two businesses, Le Faucheur explains that they don’t want to succumb to America’s capitalism by expanding more.

“We want to keep our bakeries local. For our customers and also for us. At first, it was only Thibaut and I, now there is 28 of us, and we all know each other. I think that having this human and personal touch is crucial to run a business effectively.”