I am so weak.
Even worse, I am in denial. I tell myself that I go to Jean Marc Chatellier’s French Bakery in Millvale for the coffee. After all, it is on my way to work. Sort of.
But I walk in the door, catch the smell of fresh-baked baguettes, take stock of display cases filled with neat rows of lemon tarts with raspberries, chocolate croissants and whipped cream strawberry éclairs and, more often than not, I completely forget to fill my 
coffee thermos.
Chatellier set up shop in a Millvale storefront 15 years ago and since that time has been offering the tantalizing delicacies he learned to make as a child, working at his father’s boulangerie in Brittany, France.
Saturday is by far the busiest of days at this popular place and Chatellier’s wife, Sandy, and daughter, Adele, 16, help him work the storefront.
Customer Hank Bergstrom, who for the span of this article thought it more appropriate that he be referred to as “Henri”, walked out of Chatellier’s about 10 minutes after it opened one early Saturday in late June, his arms laden with bags brimming with treats. This is his tradition, driving into Millvale from his O’Hara Township home to buy pastries for his neighbors.
“It’s my good deed,” he says brightly.
Chatellier regulars such as Hank--sorry, Henri--know to come early, especially on Saturdays, before everything sells out.
Not long after Bergstrom departs, the doorbell announces the arrival of loyal customer, Mary Goetz. arrival. When the remnants of Hurricane Ivan wiped out the bakery in September 2004, it also wiped out all hopes of the wedding cake for her upcoming nuptials in less than a week. She reluctantly made other arrangements. In the weeks that followed, 
as the Chatelliers sought to clean out the mud and grime that rose above their display cases, Goetz would leave cups of Starbucks on their doorstep.
The couple took out a loan and reopened the store two weeks before Christmas.
That would be the time he starts selling the wildly popular Hungarian nut rolls, a December tradition since Chatellier tailors his offerings to the season. In October and November, it’s pumpkin pies. In December, Yule logs and then New Year's pretzels. About two years ago, he started selling chocolate truffles, made with the finest Belgian chocolate and hand-rolled twice, from November to April. Once hooked, swooning customers can't be without.
The French Connection
Chatellier grew up in Brittany, in a village named Couffe, where his father ran a bakery. He spent his childhood learning from his father and then continued with formal training including a four-year apprenticeship under Master Chef George Merlat.
In 1983, not long after he completed his one-year of mandatory military service, Chatellier spotted an ad seeking a pastry chef for a restaurant in Cape Cod. The ad turned out to be more alluring than the job and Chatellier left after a few months for a six-week tour of America on his way to Los Angeles.
He met his wife-to-be at an English pub in Santa Monica, Calif. and they married not long after. In addition to Adele, the couple have a 12-year-old daughter, Kristel.
The Pittsburgh Connection
Sandy Chatellier, a Shaler native who has lived in Boston and Chicago, in addition to Los Angeles, knew she wanted to raise her family in Pittsburgh. “The first suburb out of Chicago is 30 minutes away,” she says. “I thought wait a minute, where I grew up it was five minutes away from downtown.”
They returned to Pittsburgh where word of Jean Marc’s skills began to spread and friends began soliciting his service for cakes. Sandy says she would watch her husband at work and knew she was watching art. “I thought what am I doing promoting other arts, when I can promote my husband?” she says.
They picked Millvale to open a storefront because Jean Marc figured it is in the center of the county, convenient to every neighborhood. And, they wanted to buy a place and it was affordable.“We wanted to establish ourselves and not have it taken away from us,” emphasizes Sandy. While Millvale locals make up some of his business, Jean Marc says the majority of his customers, loyal and determined, come from surrounding neighborhoods and far beyond. They come for the genuine Linzer torts or the no-fat, no-cholesterol French bread or the authentic Breton cake or rich creme caramel.
An Artist at Work
On a Thursday evening in late June, after the store has closed for the day, Chatellier rolls out marzipan on a wooden butcher-block table in the back of his North Avenue store. It is wedding cake season, one of his busiest times.
He shapes the marzipan around the base of a wedding cake, trimming the edges. In the coming hours he will build it into a three-layer vanilla cake with butter cream and fresh strawberries.
He rolls parchment into a cone, fills it with chocolate sauce, snips the tip off with scissors and begins to paint elaborate scrolls across the marzipan. His hand stays steady as he moves across a side panel of the cake. And like his pastries, tarts and 
truffles, the cake begins to resemble something almost too exquisite for consumption. Almost.
Chatellier shrugs off any mention of artistic talent. To him, his success is simply that of a man creating a product that people like. (Like? He is far too humble.) He will take his time with this cake. He started baking at 5 a.m. and will likely not finish this creation until well after 8 p.m. Most nights he listens to satellite radio, tuning into a French station in Quebec, but this night it’s on the fritz, so it’s quiet.
“I like to do my wedding cakes like this at night when everyone’s gone,” Chatellier says, and, turning the cake a quarter turn, he begins to paint another side.
Heidi Price, who reported for the Washington Observer-Reporter for 10 years, now works as a writer/editor for Carnegie Mellon. Her morning commute often takes her to Chatellier's where she mulls over whether to buy a chocolate or cheese croissant. Often, they both win out.
Captions:
Spreading the frosting between cake layers
The pastry case
Sandy Chatellier, fresh baguettes and early morning customers
Jean-Marc assembling a cake
Marzipan fruit
All photographs copyright © Jonathan Greene