Acclaimed Warda Patisserie Is Expanding to Midtown Detroit

Warda Patisserie will soon be serving some of Detroit’s best hand-crafted pastries at a second home in Cass Corridor.

Founder and pastry chef Warda Bouguettaya is opening another location of her nationally acclaimed patisserie in May, at 70 W. Alexandria, on the ground floor of the Strathmore Apartments. The original shop, on Gratiot in Eastern Market, will remain open, she tells Eater.

It’s the second move for Bouguettaya, who started as a vendor at Corktown Farmers Market in 2016. She set up shop in the Eastern Market district in 2018, with little money and one full-time employee, in the space she currently shares with Trinosophes art gallery and coffee shop.

Born in Algeria, Bouguettaya celebrates through her seasonal pastries all of the places she’s lived and traveled: North Africa, France, and Asia. Bouguettaya crafts tantalizing tarts, airy focaccia, Algerian treats, and gluten-free tea cakes, sourcing seasonal ingredients from local farmers, when possible. Recent menus included chocolate and halvah cookies, vanilla bean flan financiers, rhubarb galettes, a multilayered Russian honey cake, passionfruit tarts, and a mushroom, dill, and feta quiche. The Midtown menu will serve the sweets the patisserie is known for, as well as a larger selection of savory lunch items, Bouguettaya says.

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The opening comes at a time of closures among Detroit’s restaurants amid a prolonged pandemic. “I am blessed with the support of my life and business partner, but also with the team that I have right now,” she says. “The energy and spirits are good and to know that our vision for the future of Warda Patisserie is in good hands makes any hurdles a small business faces a lot easier. We’re in a good place.”

In the past couple of years, the space on the ground floor of the Strathmore Apartments has been occupied by Dangerously Delicious Pies, French cafe and creperie Le Petit Zinc, and sushi doughnut maker Poke Burri. All have since closed. The local culture boutique Pure Detroit is also on the ground floor.

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