Sweet Eats

After many diners asked if they could buy the bread and macarons served at Gracie’s, owner Ellen Gracyalny decided to create a space where people could do just that and opened Ellie’s. It’s a small French-inspired bakery where everything is made in house and from scratch. Pastry chef Melissa Denmark and lead baker Danielle Lowe dish on macarons, fresh bread and more.

What is Ellie’s relationship with Gracie’s Restaurant?
Melissa: We like to think of Ellie’s as Gracie’s “little sister.” Most of the people who work at Ellie’s have worked at Gracie’s (for example, I’m the pastry chef and a couple of our baristas are servers there), and all the new sta! shadowed at Gracie’s to get a feel for our culture. Even though Ellie’s is a café and not sit down fine dining, both establishments have a high quality, refined take on seasonal, local food. It’s just like a family – we share our people and our values!

Danielle: The bread basket at Gracie’s is now baked here daily: baguette, focaccia, honey glazed beer bread and at least one of our sourdoughs.

Tell me about how you split your time between Ellie’s and Gracies.
Melissa: I’m here half time during the week. The other half I’m working as the pastry chef at Gracie’s. I spend the mornings developing new products with Danielle, then I finish some of the breads and pastries. But mostly, my role here is to be creative, taste and develop new menu items.

Danielle: I’m here Tuesday through Saturday doing a little bit of everything – baking and supervising the staff.

What are some of your most popular menu items these days?
Danielle: Macarons – we cannot make enough! Also, the lime glazed sugar cookies, madeleines and the chocolate chip cookie recipe that came from Gracie’s.

Melissa: We get great feedback about the breakfast sandwiches, and a lot of customers tell us they’re excited to have another place downtown to get a good espresso.

Tell us about the macarons.
Danielle: Macarons are a French pastry made with almond flour, egg whites, powdered sugar and just a bit of granulated sugar. Something delicious is sandwiched in between, like ganache, jam, buttercream, even peanut butter fluff – just about anything! They are very light and airy, soft and chewy (but not too chewy), and they just melt away in your mouth. I love them because you can make endless flavors and colors.

What are some of the macaron flavors you’ve featured?
Danielle: Some of the flavors in our case lately have been pistachio cranberry, a
Snickers-inspired variety, sesame brown butter caramel, dark chocolate and coconut, and strawberry poppy seed.

What local products do you use at Ellie’s?
Danielle: To name a few: Aquidneck honey for the honey glazed beer bread and a couple of pastries, Brown Bear peanut butter from the Virginia & Spanish Peanut Company in the gluten free cookies and PB&J, Narragansett Creamery mozzarella and yogurt, dried cranberries from Fairland Farms for the cranberry fennel scone, New Harvest coffee.

Melissa: We’re coordinating with Sean Larkin of Revival Brewing to produce an
exciting new bread which uses spent grains from the beer-making process. The malted barley adds great texture and rich caramel flavors – very malty, sweet, caramelized, dark and earthy. We started our sourdough two years ago and now we’re up to three varieties.