The book Once Upon a Tart is named after a quaint neighborhood cafe that Frank Mentesana and Jerome Audureau opened on Sullivan Street in New York City's SoHo. The proprietors-turned-authors found a store for sale and discovered that its basement was filled with musty but beautiful bakery fixtures.
PW: What gave you the inspiration to write this cookbook?
Frank Mentesana: Our customers. Throughout the years we've heard two things: "Why don't you open more stores closer to our neighborhood?" and, "Why don't you guys write a cookbook?"
PW: How was the whole publication process for you?
FM: We had some publishers come to us—a lot of people within the food world and the publishing world and the art world knew us. The actual writing took so much more time than Jerome and I ever thought. After Knopf actually bought the idea, we would tell our customers: "By Christmas it should definitely be out." This was two and a half years ago.
PW: So when you tested the recipes, what did that involve?
FM: We used our own ovens.
Jerome Audureau: Actually both at the store and at home. And we had some other people testing as well.
PW: Is there is a trick to maintaining a good business relationship over years?
FM: I remember Jerome's dad, who has a chain of his own businesses, said in the very beginning: "One of the things I think you should do in this partnership is define your responsibilities. Because once there's gray area it starts becoming difficult." I like people, but I prefer to sit in the kitchen and make something than talk to a hundred people. Jerome has a concierge part of his personality that people just love.
PW: You phased out the wholesale business—what makes working in a cafe more rewarding?
JA: It was the contact with the people. We started by doing the wholesale and it was very hard. It was doing the cooking at night and taking the subway all the time with the boxes and making the delivery. When we opened the store the great thing was that we were able to see the reaction of people.
FM: In order to generate some revenue we started the wholesale. And the other thing that was great about wholesale is we were able to test the market and see what sold and what didn't. But it's funny because Audureau's just had a meeting with Dean and DeLuca, who wants us to produce products for their catalogue.
PW: The neighborhood and the business both must have changed tremendously during the 1990s. How would you describe how it's changed?
JA: Very sad in the sense that SoHo was a great neighborhood, a very artsy neighborhood, and now lofts cost upward of million dollars. Totally different people live around here. The small businesses are being pushed out.
PW: What about in terms of the kinds of foods your customers are requesting—is there any difference or are they still looking for the same thing?
FM: We've tried to stick to our guns. To this day we don't have a low-fat muffin, and I'm sure we've lost some customers because of it. People like the cafe because it's kind of their treat. There aren't so many places, even in New York, where you can come in and get a strawberry rhubarb tart that's warm right out of the oven and then sit there and eat it.
