Baking Dreams
Article from issue 1 of ‘later’ – the Parsons Paris alumni magazine.
Story by Giulia Tacchi featuring Elisa Tordjmann
Elisa Tordjmann began her food journey after college, taking food photos and selling them. During the 2020 confinement, she decided to start her first online boulangerie with a friend in New York. When I first met Elisa, she had just started the business; we worked together on the visual identity of the bakery. A few years later, she closed the bakery, and returned to Paris to start a new food project: EliDeli, a concept based on her love for high quality food and transparency. I sat down to talk to her on a rainy Sunday afternoon in Paris, to discuss launching your own brand, marketing yourself in different cities, and the importance of inclusivity and transparency in the culinary world.
Why did you choose food?
I love food, because I like to eat. When I graduated from Parsons, I was offered an internship at Chanel in New York but I never went. I was always out with my camera, taking pictures of food, and selling the photos.
Oh wow, so you started as a photographer?
Yes, exactly. So I was taking a lot of food pictures and every time I was looking at them I was starving. So I told myself: I wanna work in the food industry. And I wanted to mix food and tech together.
Can you tell us a bit more about your new project, EliDeli?
It all started from the fact that nobody in my family bakes Challah, and it is very popular in Jewish families because of Shabbat—the Friday meal where you eat Challah bread. So I wanted to be the grandmother that made the Challah, you know? [laughs] I was working in New York and I started making dough everyday for a year. I made 150 doughs just to get the right proportions of the ingredients, for the best flavor, texture… I studied the ingredients and mixology, and I started mixing ingredients together to see what was happening. I wanted the Challah to be very soft, very tasty, not too salty, not too sweet. So I had to find the perfect balance. Now I’m using bitter sugar instead of refined sugar, and olive oil, for flavor and quality.
When we worked together a few years ago I always saw these photos of the Challah bread and it looked amazing. But I never tried it.
I’ll have to make you one!
Yes, please! The first time I tried it was last year at a dinner with a friend. And it’s amazing.
It’s amazing, you have a lot of dough, it’s soft…
Absolutely. Why did you come up with the name EliDeli?
I came up with the name EliDeli a year before we started, in New York. I wanted it to be a nice deli, even though for now I’m focusing on the Challah and the deli will come after.
Is it hard to launch your own brand?
It’s very hard. It takes a lot of time, patience, and a lot of creativity. You have to come up with a lot of ideas… and I’m doing it alone now. I recruited a baker, so I don’t have to focus on that now. Except sometimes on the weekends, or on Fridays when we get a lot of orders. I knew how to launch my own brand because I did a master in entrepreneurship, but you have to be very concise and organized to launch it. Communication is the key to success for me, and social media helps you a lot. The photos, the captions, the people on your team are so important.
How did you start?
I started by choosing the recipes, testing them and creating a menu. I organized a dinner at my place with 10 of my closest friends, and we did a tasting, and each one of them had to rate the Challahs. And once everything was approved I launched the Instagram account. And now I just launched the website (elideli.com).
How many people are in your team?
We are four people, three people in the kitchen and me. I’m the only one taking care of the business. And now I’m looking for someone who will help us with the deliveries.
Is it harder to launch your company in today’s post Covid, digital world?
After Covid when I started my very first bakery it was the best time to open it because everything was closed, so an online bakery like ours worked well. But right now it’s not that different. I think people are more and more interested in good quality food, so they wanna spend more money on good quality food that has good quality ingredients. So it is a good time for us.
Now people are relying more and more on celebrities and trustworthy faces, and celebrities are even launching their own brands… there is a lot of alcohol, restaurants… but now Cher started her own ice cream. How hard is it to have people come to you and position yourself in the market?
It’s not very hard because we are in Paris and we don’t have a lot of new food brands or celebrity food brands. There are a lot of boulangeries, but I am selling bread that is not sold there. So we are different in a way. But if I was in the US I would be scared, because there is so much competition. But I think everyone has their own chance. It depends on the market. Right now I have a micro-market, but everybody is very loyal to the brand. So I think everyone can find their own place.
How do you manage to have customers in multiple cities?
The concept for EliDeli is to be the traveling Challah, so to have pop-ups all over the world, in New York, Los Angeles, Tel Aviv and London. But at the moment, the continuous production is only here in Paris. I am actually doing a pop up in LA in December, but outside of Paris, I am the one baking, so when the pop up ends, so does our production in that city, for now. But my dream is to open a store in all these cities.
How important is it to have cross-industry collaborations or partnerships? Are you thinking about that?
Definitely. I wanna do a collaboration with a clothing brand. Like a photoshoot of someone modeling a garment and holding a Challah, you know? Or I have a friend of mine that launched a jewelry brand, and I was thinking of taking photos of, for instance, someone modeling a ring, and holding a challah. I think it could be very impactful to have a cross-industry collaboration.
Nowadays people are starting to have more diverse dietary restrictions. Of course there are people that have dietary restrictions linked to culture, allergies, religion, ideals, or, like me, people who always get their vegetable milk instead of regular milk because they just like it more. So how do you create an inclusive bakery in that sense?
In Paris it’s easier than in the US, people here don’t really ask for the ingredients. But we take it very seriously. Now, for instance, I’m working on a gluten free Challah.
How important are brand values for you?
They are very important to me. You have to define them at the beginning and transmit them to your team. The quality, transparency, and freshness are very important for us. The quality of the ingredients is so important for us. The milk comes from a local farm. The olive oil, the flour, the yeast are coming from Italy.
And how do you choose your ingredients? Do you go on culinary trips?
Yes. I went to Italy, I tried the olive oils, and I asked what was the best flour. I did some research here in Paris too and they all said the same brand, so I got that one. You can taste everything in our bread, the freshness of the ingredients. We get three deliveries of eggs per week, because we have a lot of Challah to make, and I want the eggs to always be very fresh.
What role does sustainability have in your business?
Sustainability is so important, and I think it should be important for everybody right now. People are more and more concerned about the food they eat, and transparency is so important. We will open a store soon in Paris, and I would love to make people come into the kitchen and see everything at least once a month. And maybe do some cooking classes too.
Sign me and my sister up for that one!
[laughs] yes, I’d love to have you. When we’ll have the store, we will also make panini made with the Challah from the day before, so that we will have zero waste.
In today’s world, personalisation is very important. Do you give your customers an opportunity to customize your products?
Personalisation is very important because it allows people to try something different every week. On my Instagram, every week, for instance, I ask what they want in their Challah, and we make personalized Challah for our clients. I am also always experimenting with new Challahs. I will soon try to have a flavor of the month. All the Challas we offer are inspired by my friends. For instance, my friend Matilda, she’s the sweetest person, inspired the Challah with orange and sugar.
Last question. Do you create one person portions?
Yes, we have the big Challah that is for 4 people, the medium one, that is for 3 people, and the buns that are single portions.
Amazing! Thank you so much for your time, Elisa!
Thank you!
