French Bakery Near Me in Lomita: Pâtisserie Chantilly's Tokyo-Style Choux

Pâtisserie Chantilly is a small French pastry shop in a Lomita strip-center unit, 2383 Lomita Blvd, Unit 104, that has been filling its case with choux, mousse cakes and tarts since 2005. Its own story page says the pastries are inspired by the elegance of Japanese patisserie, which explains why the cream puffs look as exact as the ones in a Tokyo department store. If your french bakery near me search lands in the South Bay, this is the one South Bay families order birthday cakes from.

The clearest account of the founding is a November 2011 profile by the Ninja Baker blog. It names Keiko Nojima as executive chef and owner, trained at San Francisco's California Culinary Academy, and says she opened the shop a little over six years earlier after noticing that Southern California had nothing like the patisseries of Aoyama and Shibuya. She worked from notes and tastings to recreate those cakes, macarons and pastries, and at the time hired only Japanese assistants because, as she put it, someone from Japan would know how it is done.

The shop's current website keeps the founding date, Est. 2005, and describes the style in its own words: delicate whipped mousses, silky creams and velvety custards layered with seasonal fruit and a signature lighter-than-air sponge. That is the Japanese strand of French pastry, lighter on butter and sugar than a Paris boulangerie and heavy on precise cream work. The name itself is a French pastry term, crème Chantilly being sweetened whipped cream.

The 2011 profile also explained why the details matter so much. In Tokyo, the writer noted, a refined customer base means a single misplaced strawberry on a shortcake can send someone to the competitor, and Nojima told the blog that the beauty of competition is the quality it produces. That standard shows in the case today: identical rows of slices, glossy gelée tops and choux piped to the same height, more like a jewelry counter than a farmhouse bakery.

Start with the choux. The Choux aux Sésames, $5.50 on the shop's Square menu, is pâte à choux baked with sesame and filled to order with black sesame cream, then finished with a drizzle of mesquite honey. The classic Choux à la Crème is also $5.50, and a box of six, the Choux Special, is $31.50. Filling to order matters, because it keeps the shell crisp. The éclair, $6, comes in sesame, chocolate and vanilla, filled with chantilly cream under chocolate icing.

The Gâteau Fraise is the Japanese strawberry shortcake that anchors any Tokyo cake shop: layers of chiffon, the house cream, strawberries and pure jam, $7.15 a slice and $45 for the smallest whole cake. The Chantilly Fromage, $6.95, is what the menu calls the chef's signature cheesecake, a creamy baked filling on a honey graham crust. The Ciel, $7.50, is described as the signature rare cheesecake, the unbaked Japanese style, filled with blueberry gelée and set on a cocoa tart. Le Matcha is $7.

Seasonal pieces rotate through the case. In October 2026 the Square menu listed Pommier and a Black Sesame Framboise Tart at $8, while the Chateau Chantilly is marked as in rotation and not available until the end of the year. The Mont Blanc, chestnut cream piped over chantilly and imported chestnuts, is sold as a whole cake at $52, with pickup after 1 pm, limited quantities per day and first come, first served.

Whole cakes need to be ordered 48 hours ahead through the Square Online store, and several listings warn of closed days, such as the Monday holiday on September 21, 2026, when no pickups were taken. The menu page suggests ordering ahead to skip the line, and Square pickup slots on weekdays start at 11:30 am, so walk in if you want something at the 8 am opening. Birthday orders let you add a message in a special-message field at checkout.

Chantilly also runs a full drink menu, which turns a pastry stop into a sit-down break. The café page lists a Matcha Azuki Float at $9.25, an iced hojicha latte with black sesame ice cream at $8.95, a sparkling yuzu sorbet float at $8.75 and an ube latte at $7.25. Among the everyday drinks, the hojicha oat latte is $6.50 and the matcha tea latte is $6. The homepage says breakfast and brunch are coming soon, so the menu is still growing.

Lomita is a small independent city wedged between Torrance and the Palos Verdes Peninsula, and the shop is a convenient stop on the way up the hill. A slice of shortcake travels well enough for a drive to the Palos Verdes coast, where Point Vicente and the bluffs above the ocean make a natural place to eat it. Torrance, with its dense run of Japanese markets and restaurants, is a few minutes away and a good pairing for anyone who came for the Tokyo side of this bakery.

Plan around the weekly closing. The shop is dark on Mondays, and the busiest window is weekend afternoons, when people pick up cakes for evening celebrations. On weekday mornings the case is fuller and calmer, which is the best time to choose among the individual cakes before popular slices like the Gâteau Fraise run low. Keep a cake in a cooler if you are driving far, because the mousses and creams are made to be eaten cold.

Address: 2383 Lomita Blvd, Unit 104, Lomita, CA 90717. Hours: Tuesday to Sunday 8 am to 7 pm, closed Monday. Order whole cakes 48 hours ahead at patisserie-chantilly.square.site; the official website is patisseriechantillyusa.com. Choux aux Sésames $5.50, Gâteau Fraise slice $7.15, Chantilly Fromage $6.95, Ciel $7.50, Matcha Azuki Float $9.25. Mont Blanc whole cakes are limited each day and released for pickup after 1 pm.