Seattle - December 18, 2006

Dough Boy

Bakery Nouveau Opens

Wake up 32.6 minutes early. Decide to start week with best intentions. Sip banana-acai berry breakfast smoothie as you perform perfect blowout.

But one harried meeting and two panicky client calls later, you’re nothing but a messy ponytail with a bad sugar jones.

Time to get your bedraggled self to Bakery Nouveau, a warm and cozy Parisian-style sweet shop — just opened in West Seattle.

It’s the first solo effort from William Leaman, former head pastry chef and chocolatier at Essential Baking Company (not to mention a gold medalist at the World Cup of Baking), who’s channeling his talents into his own line of pastries and artisanal breads.

If the cheerful chocolate and butter-yellow decor doesn’t perk you up, decadent éclairs, macaroons, and croissants should do the trick. Feeling ambitious? Sign up for one of Leaman’s bimonthly baking classes.

Because unlike your head of drizzle-induced frizz, that’s a challenge you can rise to.

Bakery Nouveau, 4737 California Avenue SW, between Alaska and Edmunds Streets (206-923-0534).

  Artisanal, Read the Sunday Paper, Sweet Tooth