Food & Culture

Bakery Spotlight: Rosellini’s

Ballard darling Honoré gets a new owner, a new name and some savory additions

By Chelsea Lin February 17, 2017

0217_Rosellini_0


This article originally appeared in the February 2017 issue of Seattle Magazine.

Even if you’re one of the lucky Ballard residents who live close enough to Honoré to catch the aroma of baking croissants, you may not have noticed when the beloved neighborhood bakery quietly changed hands last June. Suzanne Rosellini, herself a regular since Franz Gilbertson opened the shop in 2008, bought the business when Gilbertson relocated with his family to the Midwest. For months, the gilded sign on the door still read “Honoré,” though it now, finally, reads “Rosellini’s.”

A veteran of the local restaurant scene for more than 20 years, both in the kitchen and as a server (Tilth, Grand Central Bakery, Hattie’s Hat, to name a few), Rosellini has been baking custom cakes for special orders under the name Rosellini Sweets since 2008. While she was a server for Maria Hines at Tilth, Hines let her bake out of the Wallingford restaurant’s kitchen. But Rosellini dreamed of opening her own place, and she says Honoré was the kind of place she wanted.

When Gilbertson decided to sell, a friend connected him with Rosellini. The self-taught baker met Gilbertson and his staff in the kitchen every day for three weeks to learn the meditative art of rolling laminated dough (the many-layered dough used to make buttery, flaky croissants) and folding the bakery’s popular kouign-amann (a pastry originating in Brittany that’s encrusted with caramelized sugar and dusted with large flecks of sea salt).

Despite the steep learning curve, Rosellini has hit the ground running, expanding the bakery’s selection to include more savory items—such as a comforting rustic bacon, potato and leek pie, and a red pepper Danish with a perfect runny egg baked in the center—and her own moist layer cakes by the slice. She’s familiar with the frequently experienced heartbreak that happens when the person in front of you buys up the last few pastries; with that in mind, she is committed to ensuring that her case is full of huckleberry Danish, almond croissants, canelés, quiche, éclairs and all manner of goodies from morning to afternoon.

Is everything the same as before? No. Even Rosellini admits that “of course it will look different, it’s a different set of hands in the kitchen.” She’s right: The croissants aren’t quite as browned around the edges, the kouign-amann’s caramel top sticks in your teeth a little more. But the differences are minor compared to the gain for the neighborhood—basically, two bakeries where before there was one.

Join The Must List

Sign up and get Seattle's best events delivered to your inbox every week.

Follow Us

Decolonizing dining in Seattle

Decolonizing dining in Seattle

Hillel Echo-Hawk is at the forefront of Seattle’s Indigenous food movement

In 2022, an Indigenous-owned restaurant serving a precolonial menu — Owamni, in Minneapolis — earned a James Beard Award as the best restaurant in the country. Names like Sean Sherman and Crystal Wahpepah (respectively, a Beard award finalist for best emerging chef, and the first Native American chef to compete on the Food Network’s Chopped)…

Pastry: An Affair to Remember

Pastry: An Affair to Remember

Chef Ewald Notter of Dote Coffee Bar makes it easy to fall in love with pastry and chocolate

Most romances unfold in predictable ways. An invitation for lunch, where you share sandwiches in a loud café, silently wishing your bread was crisper, but never giving up on the idea that one day it might be. An awkward laugh as your fingers touch while you both reach across the table for sugar in that…

Mix It Up. Try old-school cocktails this holiday season

Mix It Up. Try old-school cocktails this holiday season

These 10 drinks may not be on the menu at your local bar, but all pack a punch as well as some colorful history

Editor’s note: A version of this story previously appeared in “Seattle” magazine. Impress your guests this holiday season with these 10 concoctions from a vintage bar guide from Glenn Shaw Creations – supposedly from the 1950s – found in an antique shop in Olympia a few years back. Keep in mind that these drinks may…

Sip, Slurp, Celebrate at Frank's Oyster House

Sip, Slurp, Celebrate at Frank’s Oyster House

Let’s be Frank about Champagne

The best bubbles in Washington state may very well be found at an East Coast-style restaurant in Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood. That, at least, is the opinion of The Champagne Bureau, USA, which has named Frank’s Oyster House and Champagne Parlor as one of the top 10 bars and restaurants in the nation for the quality…