It all started in 2022, when Samy discovered Mexico while studying at the TEC in Monterrey.
It was love at first sight. After a year in Luxembourg he decided to come back, this time with one specific idea: open a French pâtisserie in Monterrey. The bakery opened in a house at Río Guadalquivir 136 after more than a year and a half of work.
The road between France and Monterrey
In December 2023, after months of talking about the project, a friend named Maritie passed Samy the contact of Dominique. Samy was just looking for advice. Dominique, who lives in Geneva and runs shops there, hesitated at first. A project on another continent is no small decision. What planted the seed was a customer at one of his shops who had lived five years in Mexico and spoke about the country with affection.
On January 20, 2024, Dominique landed in Monterrey. He called it "Mexico's Dubai": a modern city, surrounded by mountains, that reminded him of Geneva. The project started to take shape.
I loved the culture, I loved the people. Here is a bit like in France: it is a culture that matters.
Samy · Jardín Sucre
The hard months
What came next were the hard parts. Work visa. Setting up the company. And above all, finding a place. More than once Samy was close to giving up.
What unblocked the path was the Villarreal family. Mauricio Villarreal and his people brought the team support, trust, and warmth. Along the way they also met Yann, commercial director at Europan, who decided to back them from the first conversation when the project was still only an idea, and Aula Sabor, which lent them its kitchen for their first tests in Mexico.
After visits, disappointments, and frustration, the place appeared. Río Guadalquivir 136. A house. Love at first sight. More than a year and a half after they started.
The croissant de muertos as a gesture
The pâtisserie that opened isn't a replica of France. Samy puts it plainly: the idea is to bring French culture alongside the Mexican one, not on top of it. The example they like to give themselves is the croissant de muertos.
What we are trying to do is bring our French culture while sharing the Mexican one.
Samy · Jardín Sucre
A small distinction in language and a large one in practice. They build new products, in their words, "so as not to appropriate your culture, but on the contrary, to share it".
Bread and coffee between two countries
For Samy, Mexico and France share more than it seems. Both eat a lot of bread, both drink a lot of coffee, and both have a piece of fermented dough that holds the same place in the morning: the concha on one side, the brioche on the other. At Jardín Sucre they even experiment with a cross of the two, a concha built on French dough.
Here in Mexico and in France, you have two countries that eat a lot of bread and drink a lot of coffee.
Samy · Jardín Sucre
The same logic explains why coffee matters as much as bread on their bar. The machine they pull on is one of the first three or four of its kind installed in all of Mexico, sent by Folka. It is not an accessory. It is part of the product.
Thank you to Folka, who sent us the machine. With it we hope to make the best coffee, with this new machine that has only just arrived in Mexico. I think it's the third or fourth one installed in the country.
Samy · Jardín Sucre
Three things from France, every day
When we asked Samy what part of France travels with him into the day-to-day of the business, he named three. The typically French products they bake on the bar. Chef Dominique, with whom he speaks French every day. And the rigueur: rigor, kept in French because he admits he can't quite translate it.
The rigueur. Everything is structured so that every day the products come out at the same quality, with the same taste and the same presentation.
Samy · Jardín Sucre
It is the same word French chefs and baristas reach for to describe what holds a service together shift after shift. Repetition without wear. The promise that the piece that goes out on Monday is the same one that goes out on Saturday.
Three people, two countries, one pâtisserie
Samy, Dominique, and the Villarreals. A French pâtisserie with European technique and a Mexican table, in a house in San Pedro Garza García that took two countries to build.