Brunch à la Marché

Author and Beaucoup Bakery founder Jackie Kai Ellis invites us for a market-inspired Paris brunch.

If there’s anything better than Paris in the spring, it’s Paris in the fall, when the markets are overflowing with fresh produce—and inspiration. Author and Beaucoup Bakery founder Jackie Kai Ellis recently uprooted from Vancouver to make beloved Paris her home base, and has embraced Parisian life like a pro, spending lazy Sundays whipping up butter-laden breakfasts and afternoons wandering from patisserie to patisserie. We asked Ellis to share her secrets for a market-inspired brunch to bring a little taste of Paris home, and she delivered: think savoury gougères and decadant roasted pears... best paired with a mimosa, of course. Vive la France.

“When I bought my Paris apartment, it was with the intention of only using it as a pied à terre. But as I continued to design the space, the more I felt connected to making it special, like a nest... I think my intuition knew I needed a place to rest before my mind knew.”

To Market, To Market

Jackie Kai Ellis browses the options at her little local market, Marché Villette. Since selling the acclaimed Beaucoup Bakery two years ago, she’s written a memoir ( The Measure of My Powers) and recently launched an online platform, APT La Fayette, to share, she explains, “inspiration and tools for creating meaningful beauty every day.”

From Paris, With Love

Ellis was splitting her time between Paris and Vancouver for the last five years before moving in more permanently and calling the 10th arrondissement home. “I knew I had settled here when I bought houseplants. I used to move around so much prior, it was never an option, but now I feel really rooted,” she says. “Not sorry for the pun.”