Every downtown office has its go-to lunchtime commissary; the neighborhood joint that’s convenient serving food that’s edible. Some of them are even worth going to. For years, ours here at Seattle Met…well…wasn’t. All right sandwiches, okay soup, ho-hum pastries, you know the drill.

When it closed we all breathed a sigh of apathy and waited for a new tenant to arrive.

So imagine our delight to discover that the new tenant was to be Belle Pastry, Bellevue’s Main Street mainstay for croissants and tarts and other French pastries. Under skilled pastry chef Jean-Claude Ferre (whom I have it on good authority counts Thierry Rautureau of Rover’s and Luc among his fans), the popular Old Bellevue branch of the bakery became a beloved hub of that neighborhood, eventually branching out to a Ballard outpost, since closed.

Lucky for us…because now the Seattle beachhead is serving its meringues and chocolate chip shortbread cookies and black forest cakes and Caffe Vita coffee—and mighty delectable chicken salads, I might add, in addition to baguette sandwiches and soups—at the corner of Western and Spring.

Just down the street from us.