Photography by Haley Hill.
Haute Sweets owner Tida Pichakron was always with her mother in the kitchen. Growing up in New Orleans surrounded by King Cakes, all she knew how to make was rice in a rice cooker while her parents were at work.
While she eventually progressed to preparing full-on dinners for her family, she hadn’t necessarily started her baking journey yet.
That came later.
Pichakron studied business at Texas A&M University. She worked in the corporate world for a few years, but had doubts about her career trajectory. She had a background in cooking and baking had become an interest, so she took a basic culinary class at Collin College.
“Of course my boss, had he known what I was gonna do, he was like, ‘I would never have let you take that class,’” Pichakron says. “But then I decided to quit my job at that point. So a little after five years of being with that company, I left.”
She enrolled in a 30-week pastry program at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone. A career changer and one of the older students in the class, she admits there were growing pains. However, she soon found herself staging at the nearby Auberge de Soleil restaraunt, and before long, she had graduated and was working in Downtown Dallas at The Adolphus.
Her new-found career would eventually lead her to Las Vegas, helping to open up the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, now the Waldorf Astoria. It was there she met her eventual business partner and established pastry chef Gianni Santin.
“It was through him and just being around him,” she says. “He’s like, ‘let’s do it’. He had come from Dallas as well. So that’s when he was just like ‘we could totally do something.’ And I said, ‘sure, why not.’ I think if you think about it too much, then you’re gonna talk yourself out of it.”
She and Santin originally operated out of a Trinity Groves events kitchen. Using their industry connections to find clients for the largely-wholesale business, the pair supplied pastries for events, hotels and area restaurants. Moving into its current location in 2015, Haute Sweets was making waves for its French-style macarons.
“That’s definitely how we broke into the markets,” Pichakron says. “Because that’s where we started with farmers markets and at the time when we came onto the scene per se, French macarons were not very popular in Dallas. At the time, I think there were only a few of us. Bisou Bisou and Joy Macarons were pretty much the only ones really doing a good style macaron in Dallas … That’s how we were able to break into the market.”
Close to a decade later, Santin is retired in Canada, business has largely shifted towards retail post-COVID, and Haute Sweets has opened up a second location in Far North Dallas. One thing that hasn’t changed? Macarons are still the number one seller, and Pichakron doesn’t exactly hide which pastry is her favorite.
“When people ask me what’s my favorite thing to make, I say it’s macarons because we make a very good French macaron. And I take pride in the fact that they’re very consistent and they’re difficult to make. Ask anyone who’s ever learned how to make them, they’re never going to make them again.”
She says what makes her’s so scrumptious is that they have plenty of filling — where the flavor comes from. Made with ganache, buttercream or jam filled between two brightly colored pastry shells, the macaron is a well-established confection. Flavors often include pistachio, berries or chocolate. Haute Sweets has the classics, but Pichakron experiments with flavors such as PB&J and salted caramel.
“Sometimes it’s just because I have an ingredient on hand and I’m like, ‘Okay, can we use this?’”
She recently incorporated black sesame, using it to create a black macaron to complete Haute Sweets’ Olympic Ring set.
“It’s a very different flavor and it went really well,” she says.
Besides macarons, the bakery sells cookies, cupcakes, tarts and cakes. Pichakron also sells a treat which she says is an improved version of an American classic.
“Our oatmeal cream pie is better than Little Debbie,” she says. “We were doing a meal train for a chef friend of mine … And she’s like ‘where’s the oatmeal cream pie’. I was like, ‘damn, no, sorry’ so she was like ‘really? I’ve been looking forward to that.’ But the oatmeal cream pies are really good.”
Her biggest goals include getting the oatmeal cream pies into a supermarket or grocery store, and shipping her macarons — as long as they aren’t crushed in transit.
Visitors at the Lake Highlands location will notice a large window as they enter, giving them a glimpse behind the scenes in Haute Sweets’ pastry kitchen.
“I love seeing the kids hop up on the chair,” she says, “If we’re right at that mixer right in front of the window and they’re looking, we wave to them. I love that. I love for them to see what’s going on.”
Those kinds of interactions are why Pichakron opens her store every day.
“It brings a smile to a lot of people’s faces and that’s the humane side of it,” she says. “You create a product, you see the smile on someone’s face or the joy that it brings. That’s why you do what you do.”
Haute Sweets Patisserie 10230 E Northwest Highway, hautesweetspatisserie.com, 214.856.0166
