A Bakery Built on Bread and Belonging
The Topanga home of Barbara Cannamela, Gilles Vandevivere, and their children, Kenzo and Raphael, is divided neatly in half: on one side, the family kitchen; on the other, a fully equipped bakery. From the front door, you see a curated living room with family photos and simple decor to the left. To the right, gleaming stainless steel bakery racks, ovens, and a commercial refrigerator. This family home is also the stateside headquarters of the family business, Kneady Bakery.
At a time when many Americans dream of escaping to France, Barbara and Gilles have found a way to bring France to them. They’ve sown a bread business in the Viewridge neighborhood, transforming a corner of the canyon into something resembling a small Provençal village.
Several years ago, it was just a dream. As the owners of La Fabrique du Boulanger, a bakery in Saint-Martin-De-Crau just outside Aix En Provence, life was busy for Barbara and Gilles. During a much needed vacation, they fell in love with Topanga and made a plan.
“In France, people need to go to the bakery every morning—it’s a way of life,” Barbara says. “The micro bakery concept is not common there. We wanted to try it in the U.S. as a break from the rigorous pace of the European model.”
At first, they rented a ghost kitchen in Echo Park. The one year lease gave them enough time to study the American market. Then an opportunity arose to move to Topanga, and they jumped at the chance. Their new landlord gave permission and the county approved permits for a cottage home business.
One year later, this is a typical day:
Barbara gets up at 4 am to bake croissants: chocolate, almond, and plain. They are the neighborhood favorite, and a relatively new offering. There had been experiments—days when Barbara made the flaky pastries entirely by hand—but she knew she needed a laminator. The machine repeatedly rolls and flattens croissant dough to distribute butter into dozens of ultra-thin layers. It was also costly. Neighbors offered to take up a collection, but in the end no crowd-funding was necessary. Gilles showed up one day with a dough-sheeter in tow.
After the croissants, Barbara starts on the bread, which may include classic sourdough, traditional baguettes, and holiday challah. There are German seed loaves, ancient grain einkorn, brioche, focaccia, and an assortment of gluten free options including buckwheat with blueberries and cranberries.
The seasonal menu has grown, too, with items like quiche, lasagna, and tiramisu. These are made to order and requested in advance.
And when she can get it, Barbara turns chestnut flour into bread that is slightly sweet, nutty, and earthy. Kneady Bakery is one of only a handful of places in America producing chestnut bread. Here, it is their signature.
As items are cooling, others are wrapped in paper, then displayed on tables in the garage, ready for purchase.
In response to an overwhelming number of customer texts, a dedicated WhatsApp group was formed. There, Barbara shared this message:
“When you come to Kneady, you’re not simply walking into a bakery. You’re stepping into our home. Literally. Our bakery is our garage. Sometimes you’ll see Giles behind the counter, sometimes it’ll be me. Sometimes one of our children will welcome you. It may look like different people, but the truth is we’re all here every single day…Not because we know who’ll come. We don’t. Not because we know how much we’ll sell. We don’t. We turn the lights on because that’s our commitment. We feed our sourdough. We mix our dough. We shape every loaf by hand. We bake every single day. Whether you come that day or not. Because that’s what it means to be an artisan bakery.”
It starts with the lights being turned on at the crack of dawn, but truly, everything starts with the flour.
“In France, we make the flour like we make wine. Every year the harvest is different— depending on the sun, depending on the rain—and it produces different varieties,” Barbara says. “In France, we blend different varieties to find the perfect balance of gluten; we want just enough to be able to bake, not too much.”
That may be one reason some of her customers say European wheat is more digestible. Whatever the explanation, Barbara and Gilles are uncompromising on the flour they use. Everything baked here in Topanga is made with organic French flour, milled in the Loire Valley. Barbara talks about the flour as if it were gold.
“We trust this flour because the mill has a patented process that can’t be found anywhere else. The product is a grain that delivers a more nutritive flour – it is the Hermés of flour,” she says.
There is a warm Julia Child quality about Barbara. She is always smiling, as she dries her hands on her white apron, or bags fresh imported flour by the pound. On the day I am invited into her home, she talks excitedly about the expected return of Gilles, who travels back and forth between Topanga and Provence. With bakeries in each location, the couple must split their time. It is not ideal. Yet for business owners, Barbara says things are easier in the U.S. Now, the French flagship provides profits for the Topanga outpost to build up. It is a scenario that works for the time being.
The couple met at Gilles’ bakery in Grasse, on the French Riviera. Recalls Barb with a smile, “I was a loyal customer. But there was one thing I loved more than anything else: his almond pain au chocolat. To me, it was simply the best on the entire Cote d’Azur. Rich, fragrant, generous, perfectly baked—the kind of pastry you don’t forget.” She couldn’t forget the baker either. “Honestly, after tasting that almond pain au chocolat, falling in love with the baker was almost inevitable!” she laughs.
The story of their love begins in Grasse; the story of their food begins in a field in Aix En Provence, with a farmer, then a miller. It begins in a creamery in Normandy, where Kneady sources its butter. Barb and Giles know the people, they’ve walked the fields, visited the mills, and met the teams. They do not work with anonymous suppliers.
In much the same way, most of their customers know them. It is a business built on relationships.
Neighbors frequently come by with fruit from their garden or eggs from their hens, offerings that may find their way into the next Kneady creation.
“Each fruit carries something from the person who cared for it—the hands that watered the tree, the patience of the season, the light, soul, and heart of the canyon,” Barbara says. “California has a very special energy. You feel it in the earth, sun, and intensity of the colors. As a baker, I try to capture that in something simple like a tart, or a piece of fruit placed exactly where it belongs. A dessert can offer more than a sweet moment, it can carry a place, a little piece of the people around us.”
This is exactly the type of close relationship Barbara wants with her customers. She knows them. She knows what they like to order, remembers their preferences, and knows who they are as people. Kneady has brought the community together. Many people have become regulars and friends, and the bakers’ home and business have become almost indistinguishable. Perhaps that is the point.
Consumption habits are changing. Where once there was a brick-and-mortar store front, there is now, increasingly, an intangible relationship between customer and merchant—one built on familiarity, trust, and a sense of belonging. Barbara and Gilles are betting on that future: one in which communities return to a form of commerce rooted not simply in consumption, but in connection.
www.kneadybakes.com Orders shipped all over the U.S.
Brentwood Farmers Market: Sundays 9 am-2 pm
La Canada Farmers Market: Saturdays 9 am-1 pm
3107 Hodler Drive, Topanga, CA 90290 Most Days 9 am-7 pm.
Call or text ahead: 424-902-0383
