Exclusive Interview with Bastille Bakery’s Jean-Denis Leleu and Wanlyn Tiberghien

Since its opening around a year ago, Bastille Bakery has made a name for itself as a piece of French soul and taste in the heart of Joo Chiat. With art workshops, seasonal pastries, upcoming Galette des Rois workshops, and their most recent launch of ‘Quartier’, a group buy initiative, the bakery is a French stop worth a trip, not just for their lovely cafe space but also for the incredible, authentic pastries, obvious from the texture to the taste to the beauty of the creations.

So Chic were lucky enough to have a moment with the co-founders, Jean-Denis Leleu and Wanlyn Tiberghien, to chat about Bastille’s early journey till now, the challenges and beauties of a French bakery in Singapore, and their childhood favorite pastries.

JD: I’m Jean-Denis, the chef at Bastille. I trained in Paris and worked in pastry kitchens in Paris and New York before coming to Singapore, where I was head pastry chef at a large bakery. F&B has been 95% of my working life, and I always wanted my own bakery with a dine-in. Wanlyn and I met as neighbours. Our kids are the same age and go to the same school, and over the years we spent a lot of late nights as friends, talking over good rum about what each of us wanted to build. 

WL: I’m Wanlyn. I’m Singaporean and married to a Frenchman (from Lille!). I’m also CEO and cofounder of Smplrspace, a real estate BI company. For as long as I’ve known JD, he has wanted to start his own bakery. In 2024 I said, just do it, because next year wasn’t going to be any easier or less busy. I introduced him to contacts and investors, and in the end I joined officially as an investor and operating partner. JD runs production, and I run operations, partnerships, and all our ordering and backend systems.  

JD: The boulangerie goes where the boulanger goes. I wanted to build something in Singapore, and after years as a chef in other kitchens, it was time to be chef of my own. Singapore has been home for 10 years. As a business, we also see Singaporeans appreciating good-quality bread more and more, so Bastille for me is about bringing home and career together.  

WL: In Singapore, breakfast can be anything, from curry in the morning to a good loaf. In France, breakfast is good bread – baguette, a croissant or a slice of brioche. Good bread is gold. What intrigued me was finding the people here who live on good French bread every day, or make it a big part of their week. I also wanted to work with someone who could scale production without losing quality as demand grew. I build the demand, and JD is the person who scales the production. 

JD: I wanted a French name, but from the start I ruled out anything with Paris, the Eiffel Tower or bread in it. No cliché! I wanted something with character and personal to French people. The location then gave it a second meaning. Besides being National Day, Bastille is also a lively area in Paris, full of restaurants and bars, and Joo Chiat has the same atmosphere: trendy, with lots of curated independent brands and businesses that take an artisanal approach.  

WL: JD named us Bastille, and it grew on me. The name is tied to France’s national day, Bastille Day, so it means something to every French person. It has also become something our local customers ask about, because for most the word is completely new. So we get to share what Bastille means.  

JD: In France a bakery is mainly a takeaway place. Nobody really dines in a bakery, although that has started to change a little lately. You buy your bread and pastries, take them home and enjoy them together. Here it’s very different: most locals like to come in, have a coffee and sit down. That’s why I wanted Bastille to have a dine-in from the start. Today we see people come in for two minutes and leave with a baguette tucked under their arm, and others who stay for a long breakfast and sip their coffee slowly. 

WL: In France, there are classics for what makes a good breakfast or goûter, and breads that go with a meal, like baguette to mop up the sauce. In Singapore, there are no rules. People eat sweet or savoury bread any time of day. Even if people didn’t plan on a savoury meal when they sat down, they’re always happy to take a bite of whatever the person across the table is having. Sharing culture is well and alive in Singapore. I’m more than happy to have a good, naughty, hot and cheesy sandwich at 10am.

JD: The recipes are French, but I’ve reduced the sugar a lot and made the flavours a little less sharp to suit local tastes. The challenge for me as a Chef here, is that a French child has to love our bread as much as an old Singaporean aunty does!  

WL: Product wise, we don’t do fusion for fusion’s sake. You won’t find matcha, salted egg yolk or red bean at Bastille. We adapt to lifestyles more than to taste preferences, so we have all the classic sweet and savory items you’d find in a bakery in France, and we serve them as all-day brunch in Joo Chiat from 8am!

JD: For first-timers, the lemon tart and a croissant. You’ll find both at every bakery in Singapore, so thats where you can taste the quality difference at Bastille: the freshness of our homemade tart base, our lemon curd, and what a buttery French croissant should be. For regulars, I recommend the caramel pecan tart and the pain suisse, which is my personal favourite viennoiserie. 

WL: For first-timers, I lean towards the croissant and the pear tart. Have a croissant fresh from the oven with a French café, our take on an espresso with a longer pull, and sit by our glass window to people-watch. A combination of the above, are why JD and I built Bastille. The pear tart is for when you want sweet indulgence and buttery flakes in one bite. If you already know Bastille, I’d go for our jambon-beurre.  

JD: A French customer might walk out biting straight into a croissant while carrying on exploration of Joo Chiat, while a local customer might order a croissant and eat it with a knife and fork. Within our team, we had a dinner altogether where Wanlyn and I introduced everyone to raclette, and some of them picked up the food with chopsticks. Why not? 

WL: A Singaporean customer asked us to warm up her croissant, which happens very often. She was ordering two, so I suggested she try one warmed up and one as it is. She was amazed to find that the one that wasn’t warmed up was better! One of my next projects is school workshops and tours that show what a typical French boulangerie is, how bread is both iconic and salt-of-the-earth at the same time, and how differently bread is eaten in daily life in France and in Singapore. As an artisanal Boulangerie, Bastille is the right place to bridge that knowledge and cultural gap, for Singaporean kids who live here and for French children growing up away from France. 

JD: Madeleines fresh from the oven. They take me straight back to my childhood home and my mother, who I started baking with when I was very young.  

WL: Choux-based pastry. As a child, I used to buy small choux filled with chocolate cream from a bakery next to the MRT station near my house. Good choux-based pastry was harder to find back then and when I see an éclair, I have to eat it. Today, every time I eat one of our chouquettes or éclairs at Bastille, I’m eight years old again. 

Thank you to Jean-Denis Leleu, Wanlyn Tiberghien, and Bastille Bakery for their time.