Mathieu Fialon poses next to a new sign outside the Frenchman’s Bakery in Keene Valley on Friday, Sept. 13. (News photo — Grace McIntyre)

KEENE VALLEY — The Adirondacks reminds Mathieu Fialon of his home near the Basque region of France on the border of Spain. Both areas have green mountains, rocks and a culture that revolves around the outdoors.

When he came to the Adirondacks with his family, the pandemic having made remote work a new possibility, he thought he saw a market for a French bakery. Judging by the fact that they sold out in less than an hour on the first day his bakery opened, without so much as a website or a sign posted outside, he was probably right.

The Frenchman’s Bakery, which does have a sign posted outside now, opened for business at the end of August at 1888 state Route 73 in Keene Valley. They will be open on the weekends until Oct. 15.

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Challenge of remoteness

Mathieu Fialon, owner of the Frenchman’s Bakery in Keene Valley, makes baguettes on Friday, Sept. 13. (News photo — Grace McIntyre)

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Moving forward, the bakery will be open seasonally in July and August. Fialon had planned to open the bakery at the beginning of this summer, but it turns out there are many challenges to opening a French bakery in the middle of the Adirondacks.

For one thing, French baking depends largely on specialized machines, Fialon said. To make their croissants, for instance, he uses a dough sheeter to create the thin, uniform layers in the dough. They also needed a retarder proofer, a machine that keeps dough cool until the middle of the night when the dough needs to be warmed up so that it can proof, or rise. Without that machine, Fialon said he would have to wake up at 3 a.m. to get the pastries ready to bake.

These machines are expensive, and although he was able to find most of what he needed through auctions, they are also an expensive hassle to transport and he had to wait until they arrived to see if they worked.

“I lost so many nights of sleep,” Fialon said.

Mathieu Fialon, owner of the Frenchman’s Bakery in Keene Valley, makes baguettes on Friday, Sept. 13. (News photo — Grace McIntyre)

Baking conditions have to be precise, which is why Fialon refers to the room where he works the dough as “the lab,” not the kitchen.

“A bakery is not artistic,” Fialon said. “It’s as fast as you can, as well as you can.”

This is especially critical since the bakery has proven to be popular. Fialon opened the weekend before Labor Day, as soon as he received authorization from the Health Department. He baked all night and relied mostly on publicity from his Nextdoor posts and word of mouth, but the community had been waiting patiently all summer and they sold out within about 45 minutes.

Since then, he has boosted production and is now to the point of only having a few pastries left at the end of the day. They have been selling baguettes, croissants and other pastries, and this last weekend he started making pies.

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The Frenchman’s Bakery in Keene Valley is seen on Friday, Sept. 13. (News photo — Grace McIntyre)

New seasons, specialties

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Around 2017, Fialon was forced into a life transition when his company, which sold cybersecurity products, was bought by a larger company.

“When I got laid off, I decided I wanted to do something different with my life, and so I went into cooking,” Fialon said.

He ended up taking an online French cooking course to prepare for the French chef exam and later decided to branch out into baking, which had been a weakness of his.

He returned to the Basque region of France to do an internship in a bakery. After that, he returned to the U.S. and he spent about two years working one night per week in bakeries near New York City, honing his skills, while also working for the company that he co-owns.

Fialon likes everything he makes, from the staples like bread to more regional specialties.

“There’s not a village without a baker because French people just simply do not know how to eat their food without bread,” Fialon said.

Fialon is also working on introducing the hikers of the Adirondacks to some of the specialties from his home near the Pyrenees.

One is a type of heavy, buttery cake called Gateau Basque that people like to take on the trail.

Another is the canele, a small cake that is made by pouring batter into a piping hot mold, which causes it to develop a caramelized crust with a soft interior.

In about a month, the bakery will be temporarily closing for the off-season, but Fialon has big plans.

Right now, he is commuting from his home in Jersey City to Keene Valley each weekend to work in the bakery. The family already lives in the area for part of the year, and they hope to move up to the Adirondacks full time once his youngest son, now 15, graduates high school.

Fialon decided to open the bakery in Keene Valley in part because they already had friends in the community, and in part because they stumbled upon the empty building that was perfect for their use. They needed three rooms — one for baking that would be hot from the ovens, one for dough preparation that needed to be kept cold, and one for storage — and the building had it all.

“I was like, ‘wow, that’s so lucky, because that’s a French bakery right there,'” Fialon said. “It was a sign.”