Mon Petit Chou

Branding as a total act  ·  2023  ·  Pachuca

Scope  Naming · Brand identity · Interior design · Custom furniture · Construction management · Experience design

Clients  Karla and Julio

Karla and Julio were serious about sourdough — the best flour, the right fermentation, no shortcuts. The price would be double any traditional bakery in Pachuca, and they wanted to open between two of the oldest, most beloved panaderías in the city. The only way this could work was to never compete on familiar terms.

The first question I asked was not about the space. It was about them: what were they not willing to compromise on, even if it cost them? The answer was immediate — everything. From that came the name and the philosophy: Sans remords. Without remorse.

While researching sourdough culture we found the conceptual core: real bread has three ingredients — water, salt, flour — and a fourth: air. Not as metaphor but as material. The structure of a sourdough loaf is formed by air trapped in fermentation. Air is what makes bread bread. This became the organizing principle of everything: the recipe, the space, the visual language, the experience of being inside.

The interior was designed as a gallery in three movements. First room: exhibition — slender furniture, gallery lighting on the bread, display frames mounted on the wall with glass you lift to take your piece and eat it. Second room: interactive — tables where eating is the performance, each lit from above. Third room: open kitchen, fully visible — the baker at work, the craft unhidden, the reason for everything.

The visual identity came from an unexpected place: both clients had a shared passion for tattoo culture. In tattoo practice, apprentices learn technique on cherubs — detailed enough to develop skill, simple enough to begin. We took that figure, stylized it, paired it with a serif typeface for elegance and contrast. A logo that looked Parisian but had been drawn by someone who understood permanent commitment. Pastel tones from the bread itself completed the palette, carried into packaging designed to be kept.

Bread has three ingredients and a fourth: air. The space that holds it should have the same.