Meet Miss Larroudé, Lucie Franc de Ferriere.
The French-born baker has brought her beautiful creations to the Lower East Side. Her painterly cakes and decadent flavors are a love story to the French countryside, which continues to inspire her—and her singular style—to this day.
Where in NY do you live?
Lower East Side
Favorite Larroudé Boot for Fall?
The Anne in black!
Favorite FW memory:
Eating one of the best strawberry cakes I ever had after a show.
What excites you about Fall?
The comfort that a slice of cake brings you when it gets cold outside.
Favorite restaurant/dish in NY?
Tricky one. At the moment I would say ramen Ishida, his tofu mushroom ramen is amazing, and I’m not even vegan or vegetarian.
IG Account you follow for Inspo:
What inspires you?
My mother, the south west of France, the countryside cooking culture, colorful clothes.
How did you get your start?
I started during the pandemic when I lost my job in the art world and my now-husband had just opened a cafe in the LES called Sunday to Sunday. I had nothing else to do so I decided to bake pastries for his shop and people started coming back for it. Four years later, I still can’t stop baking and decided to open my cake shop earlier this year in the East Village thanks to crowdfunding.
Piece of advice for your younger self / One thing you wish you knew when you were first starting out?
I still very much feel at that stage. When owning your own business you are constantly evolving, finding new things to make, and if not, it usually means that you lost the spark of creativity. But one thing I would tell my younger self is to fully trust your instinct no matter what people say or think, as people will follow if you lead with your heart.
What does a typical day at work look like?
It doesn’t get boring. My team comes in early in the morning to start baking and as I’m not shy to say, I am not an early bird, so I usually come a little later. There’s a lot of baking going on, decorating cakes, choosing flowers and the biggest part is answering emails and saying hi to customers coming through the door. Some days are short and some days are almost 24hrs.
What are some of the biggest challenges that you face as a business owner? How do you navigate them?
Constant fear of disappointing a customer. I make “homemade” style cakes and sometimes it’s not up to people's expectations. I like to add a twist to all my recipes with more unusual flavors and sometimes it’s not for everyone, but criticism is always good criticism as you can always learn something from it but sometimes it just hurts, haha.
What is one of your biggest successes so far?
There are two I can think of right now. The first one is spending my Wednesday morning teaching Martha Stewart how to make my pear raspberry maple cake for her show and the other might be baking my chocolate cake with dark salted chocolate espresso cake for Anna Wintour’s Christmas dinner.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Hopefully still creating and evolving wherever that might be.
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