South American native Cecilia Marchesini has built three successful businesses around the French classic

“Crêpes are not my thing,” says Cecilia Marchesini, the woman who is known all over Asheville (Cecilia’s Kitchen), Black Mountain (La Guinguette) and wherever she parks her food truck (Cecilia’s Kitchen/Cecis’ Culinary Tour), for her savory and sweet crêpes. “They became my thing through marriage.”

Fair enough. Marchesini moved to Asheville from Argentina in 1998 and enrolled in Mars Hill College. When she met Stephane Diaz, the native Frenchman was making crêpes at Asheville area festivals, and he wooed her into joining him. But first, she had to learn to make the iconic French dish.

“In the beginning, it was hard,” she admits. “He really stood over me and the first ones I made I never thought I’d get the technique right. But once you make a good one and then another, it becomes very simple.”

In 2003, the couple — who had married and had a child – opened Café Soleil on Lexington Avenue, which was not then the bustling retail, food and beverage street it is now.  It was there that Marchesini added her ‘thing’ to the primarily French menu – empanadas. “I am a Latin woman, and I wanted to bring my culture to it. We did two kinds of empanadas at first.”

When they split up in 2004, Diaz kept the restaurant (which he later sold to Michel Baudouin, who opened Bouchon there in 2005), and she took an office job, but kept the festival side of the business using a very simple set-up under a tent. Unsatisfied with the 9-5 life, she contracted with a friend to build out a vehicle for her, and in 2007, Cecis’ Culinary Tour hit the road.

One of Asheville’s early food trucks, she continued doing festivals and events, parked at breweries and tailgate markets. “It was at the North Asheville Tailgate Market that I came up with breakfast crêpes,“ she says. “I would shop the farmers there before the market opened and named it the Market Crêpe.”

From her truck, she also built out her selection of empanadas and added tamales. In 2012, in need of a larger kitchen for her expanding business, she opened Cecilia’s Kitchen on Merrimon,  in a small building with an even smaller parking lot. “I really bought it to use as a commissary kitchen, but also needed it to be a restaurant in the colder months when the festival season ends. We had 16 seats.”

In 2014, she opened La Guinguette in a charming cottage in Black Mountain, under the same culinary concept as Cecilia’s Kitchen. “We had some education to do there, they weren’t familiar with empanadas or crêpes. People kept asking for gravy for the empanadas.”

Marchesini points out that her savory crêpe is actually a galette. “Stephane’s mother was from Brittany and that is their style. The batter is made with buckwheat flour.”

Which means they are, and always have been, gluten free; the sweet crepes are made with conventional flour but the technique is the same for both. “There is a special, round pan that sits on top of the heat source, and you heat it to about 400’. You pour the batter on and with a special tool, spread it out to make it very thin, then you begin to add your ingredients. You have to be very fast since the pan is so hot. It takes about 5-6 minutes.”

Marchesini’s finished savory crêpes resemble origami; while they look like art, she says it’s a method she uses so her servers know which crêpe is which.

In 2020, she moved Cecilia’s Kitchen a bit south on Merrimon to a larger building with more parking but kept the original site as a prep kitchen for both restaurants, the food trucks and her catering business.

La Guinguette is closed Mondays and Tuesdays and Cecilia’s Kitchen is closed Tuesday, which theoretically gives Marchesini a day off. She laughs. “On my day off, I answer emails, do accounting and orders. So, I work every day, but I love what I do. I love to cook, to shop for ingredients and come up with new recipes. You get to talk to people and become friends with your customers.”

Cecilia’s Top Three Crêpes

La Market: There’s a lot of ingredients, it’s a large crêpe, very healthy and it helped me get where I am.

La Forestière: Another savory crêpe, with three kinds of mushrooms sautéed in garlic butter with Swiss cheese.

La Tartine: This is a sweet crêpe with Nutella. But any Nutella crêpe is popular, it’s the best thing in the world.

More on Cecilia’s Kitchen and La Guinguette.

— Kay West

Photos courtesy of Cecilia’s Kitchen