Orchard Patisserie

Good food has always been a great attraction for Tom Merz, our chef, since he took his first paid job in a restaurant kitchen as a highschool kid in upstate New York. With a degree in Environmental Chemistry, he started his career as a chemist, but his interest in fine foods continued...particularly after his first trips to Europe and Japan, where 'good food' is considered a very serious business and a part of everyday life for so many people.

When we moved to Chicago in 2006, Tom found that one of the most prestigious schools for training pastry professionals is located in downtown Chicago - and that pushed him to make this career change.

After being trained at the French Pastry School and working at several fine dining kitchens in Chicago, Tom established Orchard Patisserie in June 2009. We decided to make 'good pastries' with "real" ingredients. Committed to our policy, we make everything literally from scratch...our lemon cake starts with grating several dozen fresh lemons by hand to make the lemon zest!...It's not easy, but we believe in the best all-natural ingredients and old fashioned craftmanship.

Since we started, we met so many wonderful customers and fellow vendors at the markets. We believe that all comments from customers - complements as well as constructive criticism - help us grow and make better pastries.

Orchard Patisserie is a small  pastry business based in Elgin, Illinois, 30 miles North West of Chicago.  Our goal is to offer the finest pastries and confections using the techniques found in five star hotels and fine restaurants, but in a down to earth home-made fashion and price. All our products are hand-made from scratch with high-quality, 100% natural ingredients. Also, because our breads do not use any preservative, they are the best to be consumed on the day they are baked. So naturally, we can only bake so much, and we need to sell them all on that day! Because of this condition, vending at farmers markets work perfect for us. During the summer, we are at 3 Fox Valley area farmers markets. In addition to the farmers markets, we also take your order by phone or e-mail. We will work with you to best accomodate any of your special needs or tastes ... from breakfast pastry trays for early business meetings to your afternoon tea party with close friends.

 We hope you enjoy our pastries and confections, a small luxury for your special time.     

Our ingredients

Since our pastries are rather simple, using fine ingredients is very important.

• We do not use any preservatives or artificial ingredients. We are not 100% organic, but we are 100% natural.

Our chocolate and coconuts are fine European highest grade - we tested with less expensive brand, but the outcome was so different!

For fruits pastries we use only fresh fruits - except for Roger Bros fine frozen blueberries.