Alumni Spotlight Archives
Toni Chiappetta PCP '86
by Lucia Jazayeri, CSCA Marketing Intern
Even as an adult, Toni Chiappetta still remembers
the taste of after-school cupcakes at a Connecticut bakery. After graduating from the Professional Chef’s Program at The Cambridge School of Culinary Arts in 1986, she set her sights on baking her own sweet treats. Now she’s at the helm of her own bakery café, Sweetie Pies, in foodie paradise Napa Valley. It’s a far cry from New England, but Chiappetta’s treats—retro whoopie pies, cinnamon-spiced morning buns, and the “Number One Pumpkin Pie in America” (according to Rachael Ray)—entice vineyard-goers and locals alike. Her secret after 15 years? Trusting her childhood sweet tooth. “If I don’t like it, I don’t put it on the menu,” she says.
LJ: You grew up in New England. Did you have a favorite bakery as a child?
TC: My friend’s father had a bakery. I remember going in there as a child and eating a warm cupcake. To this day I can still remember the taste.
LJ: Why did you go to The Cambridge School of Culinary Arts?
TC: I had been bartending for a lot of years. I realized I couldn’t do that forever. I decided to go to cooking school. The school was a small school and I wanted that kind of experience.
LJ: After graduation, you worked at Icarus in Boston and Bistro Don Giovani in Napa, and then started Sweetie Pies. Where did the production happen?
TC: I was living in an old Victorian house in Napa, and at first I was baking out of my kitchen. It had a half-size oven. Picture it. I was doing cookies, muffins, scones, quick breads. Nothing yeasted at that point. I set alarms to wake me up through the night. I was doing deliveries out of my Honda. After a while, I was able to rent kitchen space, which I shared with a mom-and-pop business. I had the kitchens during the afternoons and nights, and they had the kitchens during the day. Little by little I was able to hire people to help me.
LJ: The New York Times called Sweetie Pies a “local favorite.” Napa is such a food capital. What challenges and inspirations go along with working in such a food-attuned community?
TC: In Napa, it’s either wine or food. That’s the main attraction. There are no huge museums. You come up for the wineries and then you go out to eat. People used to bypass Downtown Napa, and now they’re stopping. We have wine bars, where you can go in and choose from a hundred different wines. The bakery is next to a hotel and we send up baskets of breakfast items to them every morning.
LJ: What happens when the tourists leave?
TC: We have a good following with the locals. In the winter when you don’t have the tourists, the locals have to sustain you. We do a lot of things for the community. We do a wine auction that sends a lot of money to charities, and we’re at the farmer’s markets and the chef’s markets. Napa has around 70,000 people. It’s not like living in a big city. You know more people.
LJ: Your pumpkin pie was rated number one on the Rachael Ray Show. Did you think you were going to win?
TC: They had called me a long time ago and asked us if we could send some pies. We sent the product and never heard from them. Then, out of the blue, they called and said, “Can you send us 10 pies?” I shipped them on a Monday. They weren’t there by Tuesday, so we had to reship on Wednesday. The show was shot on Thursday. It aired back East first, and I got a call saying we were the number one pumpkin pie. We had no idea that we were rated number one.
LJ: Besides the award-winning pumpkin pie, what else is good?
TC: We do Anzac cookies, which stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. It was a cookie we did at the first bakery. Our white cake, which has almond and fresh mixed berries, is hugely popular. We do a light lunch, and we’re getting into retro items, which I really love. I’m making whoopie pies and yodels, which are flourless chocolate cakes. I look at things from when I was a kid. If I don’t like it, I don’t put it on the menu.
LJ: What has changed since the days of baking out of your kitchen?
TC: I don’t have to come in at the crack of dawn anymore. I can work 8 to 5. I have a general manager, who was my first employee when I was first starting out. My second employee is still with us. I’m able to hire people I had worked with in the past.
LJ: You have both wholesale and retail ends of the business, and you also do wedding cakes. Which clients are the hardest to please?
TC: The business I built is very service-oriented. On the wholesale side, if we make a mistake, we fix it. On the retail end, we have a lot of regulars. Some people come in for breakfast and again for lunch. One guy stays at the hotel during the week and goes home for weekends. And as long as they’re well-behaved, we really like it when kids come in.
To learn more about Toni and Sweetie Pies, visit her website at www.sweetiepies.com.
Alumni Newsletter, Spring 2010
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