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Welcome to Amélie’s — where flaky croissants, colorful macarons, and creamy quiches share space with Eiffel Tower legs popping out of walls and teacup chandeliers overhead.
We’re a French bakery and café born in Charlotte, North Carolina, dedicated to making every visit feel like a tiny escape to Paris (the fun, unexpected parts).
It all started with a single idea: that a bakery should feed your soul as well as your appetite. So we set out to create a place where:
The pastries are handcrafted daily with classic French techniques.
The décor tells a thousand stories, with each quirky piece chosen as if it’s an old friend.
Guests feel welcome to stay a while — whether for a morning latte, a secret pastry mission, or an entire afternoon of daydreaming.
From our first café in NoDa to multiple locations and macarons shipping nationwide, we’ve grown, but we’ve kept our favorite ingredients: artistry, curiosity, and a whole lot of butter.
Eiffel Tower legs coming out of walls. Teacup chandeliers. Portraits with mustaches. We believe your coffee should come with a side of wonder.
It was important to our designers that every piece in our cafés look like it has a past — like it’s been touched by human hands and chosen for a reason. Nothing here is off-the-shelf or ordinary. Each chandelier, chair, and quirky detail has been repurposed and given new life, making our spaces feel as handcrafted as the pastries we serve.
Each Amélie’s location is one-of-a-kind, like a storybook café where every chair and chandelier has a past life.
Brenda Ische is the creative spirit behind the unmistakable interiors of Amélie’s French Bakery—spaces that feel a little surreal, a little mischievous, and completely alive. She calls her style “Alice in Wonderland meets Marie Antoinette,” and it fits: bold, curious, and unapologetically imaginative.
A former US Airways flight attendant with an art degree, Brenda is largely self-taught, trusting her instincts over convention. Her imprint began in 2008, when she transformed Amélie’s original NoDa café from a simple colored room into a layered world of repurposed furniture, offbeat lighting, and details that feel unmistakably handmade and human. That touch—imperfect, intimate, intentional—has shaped every Amélie’s location since.
Driven by the belief that “everything is something else,” she prowls salvage shops and thrift stores multiple times a week, hunting for pieces with history, personality, and potential. Her spaces mix vintage needlepoints, art school castoffs, and works inspired by Calder, Dali, and Vargas—unexpected combinations that somehow harmonize. She’s even crafted sculptural lamps for Maya Angelou’s 83rd birthday using stacks of reclaimed objects.
Whether she’s reinventing a room or rescuing a forgotten item, Brenda creates environments that feel soulful, surprising, and unmistakably human—spaces that invite you to pause, look twice, and enjoy the charm tucked into every corner.
Our mission is simple: to foster a feast for the senses and create a unique experience for everyone who walks through our doors.
Eggs, milk, soy, wheat
Eggs, milk, soy, wheat
Eggs, milk, soy, wheat
Eggs, milk, soy, wheat
Eggs, milk, tree nuts
Eggs, milk, tree nuts
Eggs, milk, soy, tree nuts
eggs, milk, and tree nuts
Eggs, milk, tree nuts
Eggs, milk, soy, wheat, tree nuts
Eggs, milk, soy, wheat
Eggs, milk, wheat
Eggs, milk, soy, wheat
Eggs, milk, soy, wheat
Eggs, milk, soy, wheat
Milk, soy, wheat
Eggs, milk, soy, wheat
Soy
Eggs, milk, soy, wheat
Soy
Milk, soy, wheat
Milk, soy, wheat
Milk (optional)
Milk (optional), tree nuts
Milk (optional)
Milk (optional)