Renaissance Pâtisserie

Description: An award-winning French patisserie and bistro cafe tucked inside Specialty Shops SouthPark, run by classically-trained French chef Sylvain Rivet. The menu spans traditional viennoiserie, house-baked baguettes and sourdough, elaborate pastries like eclairs, opera cakes, and Napoleons, and a bistro selection of sandwiches, quiche, and salads. Coffee comes from Forte Legato Roastery and teas are Dammann Freres from France, with wine, champagne, cocktails, and beer also available. The space has both indoor seating and an outdoor patio with heaters, making it a good spot for lingering over a croissant and a cafe au lait or sharing a bottle of wine with pastries.

Comments: If you've been here before and thought "it's pretty small" like me, things have changed. They have an expanded dining area now with plenty of seating, and really good access to outlets. Free Wi-Fi, even a QR code menu if you're introverted and want to order on your phone.

They've catered this place to invite people to stay awhile, and it's great. It's very expensive, but the space itself is very nice. Clean, a bit posh without being pretentious, a good mix of two-person and four-person tables. The staff is nice and down to earth. I like it. They don't have cinnamon rolls technically speaking, but they having something called a Kouign-Amann which is basically a pretentious cinnamon roll. A rolled-up croissant thingy that any American would assume is a cinnamon roll at first glance.

Anyways, if you use the front entrance and only see outdoor seating and some tall bar style seats, know that you've got to walk around the corner to see the rest of the building. There's plenty of seating between that front area, the outdoor patio, and the inside dining room. It's a solid remote work spot as a result. It's big enough to bring a study group, some friends, or a date 😏, and feel confident you'll find a place to plop down (provided you don't visit at some known busy time, like Sunday afternoons).

A final note, for the first time ever since moving to Charlotte and visiting the many French bakeries here, I heard a conversation in actual French. Two very elegantly dressed ladies carried on in French for well over an hour during one of my visits here. I don't know if that means this place is more authentic than the rest, but it was cool to see/hear!