Coffee News
Acclaimed baker opens coffee shop with flawless filled croissants in Hurst
Pistachio croissant at Rapalo
A baker who has trained in Europe has opened a new coffee and pastry spot in Hurst: Called Rapalo Coffee & Croissants, it's a shop selling coffee, espresso drinks, and croissants, and it opened in September at 973 Melbourne St. by the Northeast Mall.
Rapalo is from Sayda Rapalo, a baker and entrepreneur who also owns L'Epicerie, a French market, coffee roaster, and bakery, also located in Hurst, where she serves a wider assortment of baked goods as well as French, Italian, and Spanish imports. The space functions as their baking and roasting studio.
Rapalo is her more specialized concept focused coffee and croissants, featuring drinks such as espresso, cortado, cappuccino, Americano, latte, mocha, and drip coffee.
The star pastry is the filled croissant in many flavors, including almond, pistachio, mousse, Nutella, apricot, mango, raspberry, as well as savory options and sandwiches like ham & cheese.
Rapalo, who is also a part-time teacher, is a graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington who began her pastry chef studies at El Centro College.
She went on to attend the prestigious Culinary School Ferrandi in Paris, France, as well as Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Patisserie in Yssingeaux, France, where she graduated as a French Pastry Chef. She also worked for Francois Gimenez, a chocolatier in Lyon, France.
Rapalo gives her and her husband Roland the opportunity to expand their profile beyond pastry.
"We want people to know us for coffee, not only as bakery," she says.
They roast their own beans, which they import from Honduras, and follow fermentation methods such as experimental carbonic maceration and lactic fermentation, which bring complex flavors forward.
They also sell the green coffee beans they import to local roasters such as ViewFinder, as well as home roasters.
The couple moved to Dallas in 2012 from the Honduras where, interestingly, they had a TV show featuring outdoors, agriculture, and ecotourism stories. That's how they got into coffee. They met growers from Honduras that had been featured in the show, and wanted to sell to them once they were in the U.S.
The couple remains connected to their roots with a mission of helping the community back home.
"One of our coffee vendors once said to me, 'One day, I’ll sell my coffee to you,'" Sayda says. And so he did.
