The Brioche Lady brings a taste of France to the Central Valley

Nub-Chi and Doc Thao both developed a love for French brioches while living in and traveling throughout France.

Nub-Chi was born and raised in France and grew up eating brioche. Doc’s love and familiarity with brioches came by being spoiled with the light, puffy and buttery enriched bread during his frequent visits to France. When the Thaos relocated to the United States about 20 years ago, they would seek out their beloved brioche at various bakeries and restaurants, only to be left disappointed, as the American version did not live up to its French counterpart.

“Whenever the family or in-laws were visiting from France, we would ask them to bring brioche, but there were years when neither my side nor her side of the family came for a visit, so we would experience a brioche dry spell,” said Doc.

So Nub Chi decided to try her hand at making the brioche of her childhood, and after a lot of trial and error, the result was a hit with family and friends.  In 2015, after some encouragement Doc and Nub-Chi decided to start making the brioche from home and selling at local farmers’ markets.

The Brioche Lady was born, and quickly turned into a family affair, as she often enlist the help of their five children. Doc, a physician, is also very involved with the business that has expanded into three local farmers markets and 14 different types of brioche.

The opening of the Clovis Culinary Center has helped the family expand its brioche offerings, and ramp up production.  “We’ve been able to increase production and variety, and have added cream cheese products that we were unable to do when we were using our home kitchen. Thanks to the Clovis Culinary Center we’ve added brioche singles to our menu, which our customers love,” said Doc. “And we love using the big ovens at the commercial kitchen, we can do more in less time.”

In addition, the Thao family has benefited from the help of kitchen director, Don Waddell. “Our relationship with Chef Don has been such an inspiration for us, he inspires us to keep going, and serves as a mentor. Networking with the other kitchen users is also very helpful for our business,” added Doc.

The future looks bright for this dynamic, growing family baking business. “In the future I’m hoping we can open our own bakery. We are also looking forward to bringing this business online and being able to ship brioche to customers all over the country. We are pretty excited about the e-commerce side of things,” said Doc.

To discover the sumptuous offerings that The Brioche Lady offers visit their website TheBriocheLady.com.

You can find the Brioche Lady at the following Farmers Markets:

Kaiser Wednesday mornings from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Manchester Fridays 8 a.m. -1 p.m.

Riverpark on Saturdays 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.