Photos by Jie Deng
Text by Richard L. Gaw

For every storefront along State Street in Kennett Square, there is a story there that began as a dream.

For Kallista Pluciennik, the owner and proprietor of Patisserie Lola, her dream took flight when she was a student at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., absorbing the science of baking from some of the finest pastry chefs in France and Europe. After graduating in 2015, she established her Lola Dessert Shop in her hometown of Scranton, Pa., where she developed her craft for the next four years. After a pandemic-era stint as a frequent vendor at farmers markets throughout Philadelphia, she and her boyfriend Sean Elman moved to Wilmington, Del. There, Kallista’s dream truly began to emerge, and with a little assistance from Kennett Collaborative, she came upon the former location of a doctor’s office, and in the spring of 2023, began to call it her new home. 

“I wanted to bring a modern European vibe to the storefront, in the design of a traditional French patisserie,” Kallista said. “When Sean and I began to develop and curate the interior, I was specific about everything from the color of paint to the pictures on the walls. While I think it’s important to achieve something that subscribes to what people’s vision of a patisserie should be, at the same time I also wanted to make it my own.”

As the regulars at Patisserie Lola have come to know, Kallista’s “first-come, first-served” baking model benefits the early risers, who arrive throughout the day to enjoy a delectable assortment of confections that include a canelé – a caramelized vanilla bean and rum cake – as well as a wide variety of freshly-baked scones, a caramel apple galette and of course, Kallista’s signature French macarons. 

“There is a lot that sets us apart from a normal bakery, in that I do all of the baking myself, so I am handling everything that comes out of our ovens, in order to keep a consistency with our products,” she said. “I think having high quality ingredients makes a huge difference as seen in our exclusive use of European butter – so that when you enjoy our products, you can taste the difference.”

Kallista said that her future dreams for Patisserie Lola will be to establish a bread program that will invite customers to enjoy fresh rustic breads, French loafs and baguettes; an espresso cart; additional interior seating; and the addition of a mobile vehicle that will allow customers to enjoy the store’s products their public or private events. 

For now though, the entire Kennett Square community is invited to take a delicious bite out of Kallista Pluciennik’s sweet dreams on State Street.