David Myers to open Comme Ca Bakery; Boule closes
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Boule Atelier, the stylish WeHo pastry shop on La Cienega Boulevard, has closed its doors.
Owner David Myers (whose empire of restaurants -- Sona, Comme Ça and, most recently, Pizzeria Ortica in Orange County -- continues to expand) and baker Hidefumi Kubota told the Daily Dish that they would be putting their energies into a new Comme Ça Bakery instead.
Fans of the shop’s macarons, chocolate sables and sea salt caramels might ask, why close Boule? ‘It’s pretty simple,’ Myers says. ‘We’ve had incredible demand for our breads. I’m so passionate about what Hide’s doing and he’s so talented when it comes to baking bread. Unfortunately, our location [at Boule] doesn’t give us the right space to delve deeply into bread.’
Comme Ça Bakery’s retail shop will be down the street from the current Boule location on La Cienega, and is set to open this summer, next to the space planned for Myers’ forthcoming second outpost of Ortica. Myers is moving the bread baking operation into a 10,000-square-foot facility in Culver City. (Comme Ça Bakery also will be offering the bread wholesale.)
Kubota moved to Los Angeles from Japan in 2007 and has been creating breads for Boule and for Myers’ restaurants -- specialties such as red wine bread and Earl Grey bread for Sona and baguettes and pain de mie for Comme Ça.
Kubota has high aspirations: ‘I want to change American bread culture. My thinking is that bread is a very natural product, almost like a living thing. Like a cheese or wine. I just want to show people a real, natural product.... Our ideal [might be] the French bakery, but we should have our own original product, with its own honest taste.’
The original Boule was opened by Michelle Myers, David Myers’ former wife, in 2004. A Beverly Hills outpost, which opened last year, also has closed, though David Myers says he is planning to open Boule in Tokyo later this year. Meanwhile, some Boule favorites -- a small selection of macarons and caramels -- will be sold under the Comme Ça Bakery label.
-- Betty Hallock
