The croissant genuinely tastes like Lyon, which I was not expecting on Kings Road at half-past eight on a Tuesday.
Fortnight ix · Cream wall, north light
A patisserie that rewrites itself every fortnight, — une quinzaine à la fois.
La Quinzaine is a small French-Welsh patisserie on Pontcanna's quiet end of Cardiff. Lyon-trained hands, Welsh butter, and a menu that turns over every two weeks — so the pastry in the window today is rarely the pastry you remember. Come often. Come hungry. Come when you have fifteen minutes to spare.
The fortnight rhythm
Fourteen days. One menu. Then we begin again.
In Lyon, the cellars I trained in worked to a small clock — a fortnight of one quince tart, a fortnight of another. It kept the hands learning and the shelves honest. We kept that habit when we came home to Cardiff.
Every other Tuesday the counter is rebuilt. Some things stay (the dark croissant, the kouign-amann). Most things move on. The result is a shop that never quite settles, and a regular who keeps visiting.
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i.
Two Tuesdays mark a fortnight
We call each cycle une quinzaine — a fortnight. A new menu begins Tuesday at 8am and closes the following second Saturday. There are twenty-six in a year, each numbered in the window.
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ii.
A handful stays, most rotates
Seven or eight items appear only this fortnight. Three constants — the dark croissant, the kouign-amann, the pain au chocolat — never leave. Everything else is written in pencil.
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iii.
We bake to the season, not the diary
If the Vale of Glamorgan hasn't sent the right rhubarb yet, the tart waits. If the Pembrokeshire butter is tasting particularly sweet, it goes on everything. The fortnight bends to the ingredient.
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iv.
Small batches, made from scratch, sold until they're gone
We bake for a neighbourhood, not a warehouse. When the tray is empty it's empty — there is usually something else lovely next to it. The counter quietens by three; by four the door is closed.
On the counter today
Fortnight ix, second week la carte du jour
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i.
£3.80
The dark croissant — le signature
Three days of fold, laminated with Pembrokeshire butter, baked a full shade past comfortable. Crackles in the paper bag on the walk home.
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ii.
£4.20
Kouign-amann, salted Halen Môn
Brittany's brown-sugar pastry, caramelised into the tin, finished with Anglesey sea salt. The one we sell out of first.
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iii.
£4.60
Rhubarb & Caerphilly frangipane — this fortnight only
Forced rhubarb from Glamorgan, almond cream sharpened with a whisper of aged Caerphilly. A pink tart with a savoury bass note.
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iv.
£5.40
Canelés, set of two
Bordeaux by way of Pontcanna — vanilla and dark rum, baked to a mahogany shell in beeswaxed copper moulds.
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v.
£5.80
Paris-Brest, hazelnut praline
Choux wheel, crème mousseline, Piedmont hazelnut praline. Cut one in half at the table and share it over coffee.
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vi.
£4.80
Tarte au citron, Welsh honey
Sicilian lemon curd on sablé Breton, softened with a spoon of hive honey from Llancarfan. Not sharp, not sweet — set exactly in between.
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vii.
£3.90
Pain au chocolat, two-bar — daily
Two batons of single-origin Madagascar chocolate folded into the same dough as the croissant. Best at 8:15am.
Tray-side note: the rhubarb tarts went in at nine and will be cool by eleven.
How the fortnight menu works →
Saturdays only · 8am sharp
Saturdays are for loaves.
One morning a week we push the viennoiserie aside and fill the oven with sourdough. Two levains, three loaves, no more than seventy turn-outs by lunch. A habit kept from the old Lyon boulanger down the stairs from my first flat — he said Saturday bread was the bread you ate slowly.
- 36 hours Cold-fermented in the walk-in before the oven sees them.
- Halen Môn Flaked Anglesey sea salt, stone-milled Welsh flour.
- Three loaves Country, seeded rye, and the oat-porridge miche.
- Until noon Bring a tote; they are too warm for a paper bag.
From Lyon, home to Cardiff
Welsh-born, Lyon-trained, and slightly surprised to be home.
I left Cardiff at twenty-two for a summer job in a Lyon laminoir and stayed fifteen years. I learned under three chefs — one patient, two terrifying — and kept a notebook of every pastry that mattered. When my mother became unwell in 2019 I came home, intending to stay six months.
La Quinzaine opened instead. It is not a French bakery pretending to be in France, and it is not a Welsh bakery dressed up in Paris. It is what I make when I use the butter I can now reach and the training I already have — and it only exists because Pontcanna makes room for small, quiet shops.
« Faire simple, mais bien. » Make it simple, but make it properly — the one line my Lyon chef would still recognise.
Kind words from Pontcanna
What the regulars write on the visitor's card.
I stopped asking what's on the counter. Whatever Élodie has made that fortnight is the right answer.
I was told to come for the kouign-amann. I came back for the rhubarb tart, which was there for two weeks and then gone forever. Fine by me.
They made our wedding cake — four tiers, no sugar roses, just ridiculously good sponge. We still get the question.
Bespoke wedding cakes
A cake for the day that matters. — quatre commandes par mois, pas plus.
Élodie takes four wedding commissions a month — no more. Each is an unhurried conversation that begins nine to twelve months before the date and ends with a cake that tastes like you, not a trend. No sugar roses, no piped signatures. Just properly-made sponge, seasonal fruit, and Welsh butter buttercream that holds its shape in the Vale of Glamorgan heat.
- Four commissions a month, booked nine to twelve months ahead
- Tasting meetings held Tuesday mornings in the shop
- Seasonal fruit, Welsh butter, no fondant unless asked
- Delivered across South Wales in temperature-kept vans
Find the shop
Find the door with the rose-gold handle.
We are a narrow cream shopfront on the quiet end of Pontcanna — no sign, just a handwritten fortnight card in the window and a rose-gold handle polished by regulars. If you reach Sophia Gardens you've gone a little too far.
Where
Pontcanna,Cardiff CF11 9HS Five minutes from Sophia Gardens. Bikes welcome at the rail.
When
Tuesday – Saturday
8am – 4pm
A note before you come
Saturdays are busiest after 10am — and the loaves often sell out by noon. For wedding enquiries, please write — those conversations deserve more than a counter.
