Saisons Sucrées Brings Premium French Pastry to New Canaan

Last April on New Canaan’s busy Main Street, a premium French patisserie opened, and unless you walked by or if you’re a bona fide townie, there’s a chance you don’t even know it’s there.

“No need to be embarrassed!” owner-pastry chef Elizabeth Srivastava says about those who still haven’t discovered Saisons Sucrées. “We’re sneaky! We haven’t done much marketing. We focused on organic growth, so there are still many people out there that haven’t heard of us yet.”

In addition to ordering from the bakery case, there’s some grab-and-go stuff at the register, like salted chocolate chip cookies, snacks, sandwiches, salads, and cold drinks.

And a chic area that’s just up a few stairs from the café floor.

Over a year later and her bakery, Saisons Sucrées is gaining traction. Just swing by midday any day of the week and you’ll see. It’s usually buzzing with locals enjoying a coffee, croissant, sweet treat, or sandwich. Take a look in the case and they might be close to sold out of more than a few items.

For Srivastava, her French-focused bakery didn’t only appear out of nowhere, she kinda did, too.

By way of Northport, Long Island, then Paris, then New York City, and now, North Salem, NY, she bounced from culinary, to finance, and back to culinary again.

“I lived in the city for 10 years and I was in financial services as a portfolio manager,” she says. “My husband, Amkit, and I were just done with the city after a certain point in early 2019. For me, I found my person, we got engaged, got married, and he always had a dream to love in a more rural area, so we moved to North Salem.”

Srivastava’s passion, however, wasn’t in finance. At 19 years old, she moved to Paris to attend the renowned Le Cordon Bleu, earning her Diplôme de Pâtisserie, which led her to work in pastry programs at prestigious restaurants, namely, Café Gray under Gray Kunz and at Gordon Ramsay at The London, both, she said, “were a quick education in quality and precision.”

Despite changing careers, she always knew pastry was something she wanted to find her way back to. Combine that passion with having children, and that’s when Srivastava wanted to do something that meant a lot more to her soul.

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“There are commonalities in people who pursue these types of fields like finance—we’re strivers, we’re super ambitious, but I got to a point in my career during COVID where I was working remotely, I just had my two daughters, and I wanted to do something more significant with my life, to build something that was more rewarding with my time,” she says. “Having my daughters, there was a big shift in my perspective. I wanted to do something that would essentially, hopefully be inspiring to them someday.”

She set her sights on a space in Bedford Village that was originally supposed to be a mom-and-pop kitchen concept, but when that fell through, she expanded her search, landing on the former Jean Jacobs Gallery in New Canaan.

Leaning on her French pastry education and her previous stints for big name chefs, Srivastava went back to what she knew and loved.

For the chocolate lover’s…you’ll be all over this chocolate heart, filled with milk chocolate mousse, salted caramel, and a brownie.

All pastry, like this yuzu tart, are decorated intricately and beautifully.

It’s seasonal, too! If it ingredients are fresh and local, and they go together like corn and blueberries do, make a dessert out of it!

“The idea grew from there since I never do anything in a simple way,” she says. “I went into the industry in the early to mid-2000s when everyone wanted to become a celebrity chef, when The Food Network was really big. It was formative for me in the way I approached pastry. Pastry isn’t easy but it’s incredibly fulfilling.”

At Saisons Sucrées, meaning “sweet seasons,” Srivastava and her small team are running a European, French style café, that focus on refined, premium products and technique.

And it’s not just a venoisserie with croissants, brioche, and choux pastry. Saisons Sucrées is way more with its baguette, macarons, entremets, and even sandwiches, salads, and soups in colder months.

“I wanted to do something that not a lot of people are doing, which is pastry in a refined way with a wide range of products, not just desserts, but to give people a little bit of everything,” Srivastava says. “Products are ever shifting based on the time of year. Our croissants are really strong. Most of what we bake is fresh daily and is one and done, so when it sells out, it sells out. Desserts obviously fluctuate and are always more popular near holidays, and macarons are always popular. Everything is made in house. We have a fantastic team and we’re passionate about the desserts because that’s where our creativity comes in.”

Baguettes are as big as swords and Saisons Sucrées uses imported French flour in the dough.

“Some people who can’t tolerate some breads, some have said they are able to eat ours,” Srivastava says.

Croissants are a focal point here, available in plain, chocolate, ham and cheese, and feta and spinach.

Some of the decadence you might see are best described as art that you can eat.

The milk chocolate heart has a center of milk chocolate mousse, salted caramel, and a brownie; the spherical chocolate and earl grey is filled with 70 percent dark chocolate mousse, milk chocolate-earl grey crema, and an earl grey infused madeleine sponge over black cocoa pâte sucrée; and if you caught it in season, a gluten-free blueberry-corn entremet with corn crema, citrus blueberry compote, and a bourbon maple syrup-soaked masa corn financier.

“Everything is based on French technique and the flavors pay homage to the location and occasionally, the seasons,” Srivastava explains. “Blueberries and corn are in season. I like to think about the area. Blueberries are in right now, and I’m from Long Island, and corn is big there. It’s a New England inspired dessert to me and we like to use local and seasonal because I think that’s what the Connecticut culinary scene is all about.”

Now that Saisons Sucrées is over the one-year mark, Srivastava says it’s worked out well so far, and she’s thoroughly enjoying the mentor aspect, teaching her team, and cultivating those relationships, but expansion is something else that was on her mind even before she opened the doors in New Canaan.

While she currently has no capacity to do wholesale, both space wise and with thin margins based on her high cost of ingredients, she is looking to up production once she finds the right kitchen.

“I’m not sure what that looks like in the next few years, but I would like a few more retail locations in Fairfield and Westchester counties,” Srivastava says. “Right now, everything is made in New Canaan. It would be a game changer for us to set up a production facility.”

84 Main Street, New Canaan
475.558.9630, saisonssucrees.com