Southern France Patisserie in Lakeview - Yum!

This wonderful French bakery opened in June 2015. At that time I made myself a note to visit after seeing a blurb about it in the Trib. I didn't get a chance to go there until today, and oh, what I've been missing! I bought a bunch of things, and while I haven't yet tried everything I brought home, I've loved everything I've tried. I'm so excited to have a French bakery with this level of quality here!

Let's start with the exterior and the display cases:




In addition to the usual plain and chocolate croissants, they had pecan croissants and pecan-chocolate croissants. I bought a pecan croissant ($3.50) and it was superb, among the very best in the entire Chicago area, with a wonderfully-flaky crust and delicious filling.

The canele ($2.50) was outstanding, but I don't have a photo because I ate it on the spot.

Every French bakery has to have eclairs, and their mini-eclairs ($2) are excellent:

I love me a good monkey bread, and theirs ($12), made from croissants, may be the best I've ever had (even though it sticks to the pan liner paper on the bottom), and it's larger than most others:

I haven't get tried the other items I got.

They had two kinds of entremets, and this is the one I got ($5):


Buttermilk biscuits! ($2)

Croissant bread pudding! ($4)

Their location a half mile north of Wrigley makes this a great stop before an afternoon game.

Southern France Patisserie
1405 W Irving Park Road at Southport
Chicago 60657
773-857-1478
Friday through Sunday, 8am-4pm (other days by appointment)
southernfrancechicago.com
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Yum!

Are Buttermilk Biscuits and Monkey Bread French, or is there a bit of "project creep" here? I'd buy them anyway...

Those pastries look so beautiful, thanks for the tip.

chicagojim wrote:Are Buttermilk Biscuits and Monkey Bread French, or is there a bit of "project creep" here?

It's an intentional combination of French baked goods with chef-owner Terbush's background in the American South. As noted on their website:

"Welcome to Southern France, y'all! Chef Amanda Tommey Terbush started Southern France Patisserie, based in Chicago, Illinois, in 2014, to provide French-style pastries served with Southern hospitality. Southern France is the marriage of Chef Terbush's Southern background with her training in traditional French pastries."

i was there many months ago and was wowed by a dome of passion fruit and chocolate. i just went on their website to look for the description, but the link to their pastry menu doesn't seem to be working, so my memory of exactly what it contained remains hazy.... but i was extremely impressed...also with chef amanda.

justjoan wrote:i was there many months ago and was wowed by a dome of passion fruit and chocolate. i just went on their website to look for the description, but the link to their pastry menu doesn't seem to be working, so my memory of exactly what it contained remains hazy.... but i was extremely impressed...also with chef amanda.

Perhaps it was the passionfruit and hazelnut entremet, pictured on their website here?

They had two kinds of entremet when I visited, and I bought the non-chocolate one (and took a close-up photo of its description). I forget what the chocolate one they had was (and I can't read the description in my photo of the display case); it might or might not have been the passionfruit and hazelnut entremet.

it very well could have been, though i only remember being surprised how well passion fruit(one of my passions) went with chocolate....

Just wanted to let everyone know that Southern France is still knocking it out of the park, based on my visit this morning. So many delicious things! Their croissants are absolutely perfect, IMHO the very best in the entire city. They still have so many other great things - the monkey bread, the tarts, the entremets, the caneles... Even little things that you might otherwise overlook, like those innocent looking square-shaped speckled shortbread cookies, are awesome. Bravo, Southern France Patisserie!!!

Southern France is still terrific! They are now open only Fridays through Sundays; perhaps as the pandemic situation improves, they will expand their hours.

I got several of the items that I have previously enjoyed and are already pictured above. This time I got a different entremet, the "martinique", which is a mango mousse with a thin coating of white chocolate and a small center of crushed pineapple, over a marjoleine-like bottom layer, pictured here alongside a mini eclair:

I also got a package of their salted shortbread cookies:

Their baked goods are sooooooo delicious! They are a local treasure.

I hadn't been to Southern France Patisserie in a while, so last week I went back. And everything was so utterly amazing, I ended up going there three times!

The outside still looks the same:

Inside, some of the items look familiar:

while others, like the La Bretonne on the right, are new:

(It has whipped cream and apricots inside a sparkly - yes, sparkly - white chocolate shell. Yum!)

One bite of the biscuit, and all I could think was, this is the best biscuit I've ever had. Same for the croissant. I'm not that big on quiches, but wow, the veggie quiche was easily the best quiche I've ever had too!


I previously called Southern France Patisserie a local treasure, and I still feel that way!

Stopped in a week ago for the first time. Some of the best croissants and pain au chocolat I've ever had. Also the poundcake was delicious, was rich but also had a real lightness to it. I love canele and theirs looked good, totally forgot to get one. Also went there to get a paris brest, sadly they didn't make any last weekend as they had some st. patrick's day specials, but will go back someday to try again. Also I think they open at 9am but seems like they sell out of things pretty quickly.

AaronSinger wrote:Also I think they open at 9am but seems like they sell out of things pretty quickly.

According to their website, they are open Friday-Sunday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Street parking on Irving is free on Sundays.

They DO sell out of certain things pretty quickly - especially the quiches - although they always make plenty of croissants. And if you call in advance, they are happy to set aside anything you like.

And don't overlook the biscuits as well as the quiches!

We were there for the first time on Saturday. I loved the pecan croissant! I have to say that the chocolate croissant did not meet the Good Ambler chocolate croissant bar for me but it was very good.

2nd the pecan croissant recco.

Thirded. Also got a pecan croissant, also delicious.