Le Petit Bon Bon, 835 S.W. Fairlawn, has expanded its menu to include lunch items
Emma Fiander
| Topeka Capital-Journal
Carlos Serrano Sr. of Le Petit Bon Bon is used to doing things a certain way — the right way.
That is why the French café, located at 835 S.W. Fairlawn, waited more than six months since opening in October to launch its lunch menu: Perfection takes time. He and his son, Carlos Serrano Jr., wanted to make sure the quality of the product — the bread in particular — they were selling was up to their standards from the second it was available for purchase.
“We’re pretty big on doing things the right way,” Serrano Jr. said. “We could have launched a lunch menu getting bread from someone else but we really wanted to use his bread and so rather than getting a reputation beforehand, like ‘Oh, their sandwiches are like this,’ we wanted to put our best foot forward and be like, ‘No, this is our bread, this is how we make it.’?”
The lunch options, which were officially added to the menu at the end of June, include sandwiches, soups and quiche, in addition to the established pastry menu.
“We’re really excited to get an actual lunch crowd here, and then we’ll start experimenting more and doing an actual traditional French dip with actual beef consommé and pulled pork,” Serrano Jr. said. “For the time being, we just have deli cuts which is kind of simple, but on his bread it’s just excellent.”
Though Serrano Sr. already knew the recipes he would use for lunch — recipes he had been using all his life — it wasn’t something he could do all by himself. Much of the delay in the lunch menu had less to do with perfecting the food than finding the right people to help him make it, Serrano Sr. said.
The shop is still new, but Serrano Sr. has plenty of experience in the kitchen. Before opening Le Petit Bon Bon, he ran a wholesale business, delivering to hotels, casinos and country clubs in Kansas City. Prior to that, the chef traveled the country, working and learning from Phoenix to Seattle.
He worked with a number of European chefs, learning the German, Swiss, Italian, Austrian and, of course, French way to create many of the same products. Each had a different method, but all expected the same thing: perfection.
“They wanted top-notch, consistent product,” he said. “You see, they’re very not patient and really demanding, and they can be really critical and make you cry. It’s just their pride, you know?”
Serrano Sr. has a handle on the food, but the drink half of the menu is primarily Serrano Jr.’s domain. He had been manually brewing coffee for two and a half years on his own, selling his results at the farmers market before opening the café.
“He asked me to do drinks for him so that we would kind of have something that’s up to snuff with his level of pastries,” he said.
For the men of Le Petit Bon Bon, the pursuit of perfection involves a fair amount of trial and error, concocting new products and expanding on established ones. Serrano Jr. in particular enjoys experimenting with drinks, and has taken advantage of a slow start to the summer to try out new mixtures, including adding lemonade and limeade to the menu.
The future of Le Petit Bon Bon holds more than just an expanded menu. Serrano Jr. hopes to extend business hours and begin to introduce live entertainment.
“It would be nice to get to a point where we’re open until the later afternoons,” he said. “That’ll open up a lot of doorways to do something fun like live music or special art shows where we might feature an artist and bring them in and have them talk about their work.”
Ultimately, Le Petit Bon Bon aims to provide Topekans an unique dining experience, carrying menu items not always found in an average coffee shop.
“This is a great place to explore your pallet. We’re constantly switching up our menu and now is gonna be a really, really good time as we continue to do some new lunch products,” Serrano Jr. said. “It’s a good place to just try a lot of things.”
Dining and Cooking