The first time I walked in she offered me a piece of something I'd never heard of. I've been eating whatever she makes next ever since.
The Story · Lyon to Pontcanna
The name is La Quinzaine. — a fortnight, a small promise, a way of working.
la quinzaine n.f.
/la kɛ̃.zɛn/ — from quinze, fifteen
- i. A period of about two weeks; a fortnight.
- ii. In Lyonnaise pastry cellars — the cycle on which a menu is rewritten, taught, and tested.
- iii. Here in Pontcanna — the honest clock of a small shop.
We chose the name La Quinzaine before we chose the paint, the floor tiles, or even the street. In Lyon — the pastry capital that politely insists Paris is overrated — a quinzaine is the length of a menu, the length of an apprenticeship block, the length of time a chef will let you practise one tart before moving you on to the next.
It is a word I heard every morning for fifteen years. When the time came to open a shop of my own on Kings Road, I couldn't imagine calling it anything else. It tells our regulars what to expect — come, leave, come back two Tuesdays later, and the counter will have changed its mind.
This page is the longer version of that story. Why a Welsh-born pastry chef spent her twenties in France, why she came home, and why — of all the stubborn ways of running a small bakery — she picked this one.
Welsh-born, Lyon-trained
Fifteen years away — and a notebook of every pastry that mattered.
I grew up in Llandaff with a Welsh mother and a French grandmother who refused on principle to drink tea. I left Cardiff at twenty-two for what was meant to be a summer job at a laminoir in Lyon's 6ème — where they make the dough for three of the city's oldest patisseries — and I stayed for fifteen years.
I trained under three chefs. One patient, called Marie-Hélène, who taught me the cellar. Two terrifying, called Benoît and Clément, who taught me the pass. I kept a small black Rhodia notebook and wrote down every pastry that mattered. It now lives above the oven in Pontcanna.
« Faire simple, mais bien. » Make it simple, but make it properly — the one line Clément would still recognise.
When my mother became unwell in the summer of 2019, I came home, intending to stay six months and help her through it. She is, happily, still here. La Quinzaine opened instead, in the narrow cream shopfront at the Sophia Gardens end of Kings Road, on a Tuesday in early October 2021.
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2004
Leaves Cardiff for Lyon
Summer job at Laminoir de la Croix-Rousse. The summer ends, the job does not.
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2007
Cellar under Marie-Hélène Vidal
Three years of viennoiserie and laminated dough. Learns that butter is a temperature, not an ingredient.
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2012
Pass under Benoît Moreau
Six years at the shoulder of a chef who broke two pastry pipes a week and knew exactly why each one was her fault.
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2019
Home to Cardiff
Six months to help her mother through an illness. Twelve months in, begins sketching what Pontcanna might want to eat.
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2021
La Quinzaine opens
A narrow cream shopfront on Kings Road with a rose-gold door handle and one oven. Fortnight i begins with a dark croissant.
Why the fortnight
A small shop that refuses to settle.
People ask me this at the counter at least once a week: why don't you just pick a menu and stick with it? Wouldn't it be easier?
It would be. We'd have steadier days, fewer fourteen-hour prep rushes, and a much simpler WhatsApp group. But we'd also have the wrong shop. Here is the honest, four-part answer I give if the queue behind them is patient.
-
i.
It keeps the hands learning
A chef who bakes the same six things for two years becomes an expert at those six things and — quietly — a stranger to everything else. The fortnight means I'm always three days into a new tart, which is the only place real work happens.
-
ii.
It respects the ingredient
Welsh forced rhubarb has a window of nine weeks. Pembrokeshire strawberries, four. A fixed menu asks the ingredient to be patient for us; a fortnight menu goes the other way round.
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iii.
It gives regulars something to come back for
Our busiest day is the first Tuesday of a new fortnight. Pontcanna knows the rhythm by now. The shop's job is to deserve that curiosity.
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iv.
It keeps us small, on purpose
We could scale a fixed menu to three shops tomorrow. The fortnight, honestly, can't be franchised. That limit is not a problem I'm trying to solve — it's the reason the work stays good.
Welsh butter, French hands
The short list of people whose food this is, really. nos producteurs
-
i.
Mary Gibbon's Dairy — Pembrokeshire
Cultured butter. Our laminated doughs, and every buttercream we make.
since fortnight i -
ii.
Halen Môn — Anglesey
Flaked sea salt for the kouign-amann, the caramels, the Saturday loaves.
since 2021 -
iii.
Felin Ganol Watermill — Ceredigion
Stone-milled organic flour — country loaf, seeded rye, and the Saturday miche.
since 2022 -
iv.
Glasbren Farm — Vale of Glamorgan
Forced rhubarb, soft fruit in season, and the first strawberries of June.
since 2022 -
v.
Caws Cenarth — Carmarthenshire
Aged Caerphilly for the rhubarb frangipane and the occasional savoury quiche.
since fortnight iv -
vi.
Llancarfan Apiary — Vale of Glamorgan
Hive honey — tarts, wedding cakes, and the Tuesday glaze.
since 2023 -
vii.
Pontrhydfendigaid Orchards — Ceredigion
Welsh plums and late apples — September tarts and autumn wedding cakes.
since 2023 -
viii.
Valrhona / Duffy's Chocolate
Single-origin Madagascar from Valrhona; Welsh-roasted bean-to-bar from Duffy's for the signature dark croissant.
since fortnight i
If it's on the counter, one of these names is behind it.
See what's on the counter today →
Kind words from Pontcanna
Neighbours, regulars, and the honest reviewers.
I lived in Lyon for two years. La Quinzaine tastes like the bakery at the bottom of my old street — not a pastiche, not a cover version. The real thing, reset in Welsh butter.
Élodie made our wedding cake. Three tiers, no sugar flowers, and the sponge was still moist the next morning. Our caterer asked for her number.
My daughter moved to Cardiff for university. I moved here six months later, largely because of this shop.
Every fortnight I think I've found my favourite thing she makes. Every fortnight I'm wrong in a new direction.
Small shop, no nonsense, quietly one of the best pastry counters in Britain. Worth the drive from Bristol.
— we keep the cards in a tin behind the till. thank you for writing.
Come and see
The shop is the rest of the story. — venez, quand vous pouvez.
You could read about La Quinzaine for an afternoon and still miss the point. The point is a cream room at 10am on a Wednesday, a hand-chalked fortnight card in the window, and whatever has just come out of the oven. The door is on the quiet end of Kings Road; there's a rose-gold handle that the regulars have polished to a shine.
Where
Pontcanna,Cardiff CF11 9HS
When
Tuesday – Saturday
8am – 4pm
