JL Patisserie
Audio By Carbonatix
After one influencer’s review of a Valley bakery ignited a social media firestorm, it caused the internet’s most recognizable food influencer to catch a red-eye flight to Phoenix. That would be Keith Lee, the former MMA fighter-turned-social media food critic, who dropped into Phoenix to visit JL Patisserie and see for himself what all the fuss was about.
Lee has amassed 17.2 million TikTok followers thanks to quick videos of himself tasting food, usually while seated in a car, ranking items on a scale of 1 to 10. His reviews can boost or bust a business — a phenomenon referred to as the “Keith Lee Effect.” During a visit to Arizona in 2024, Lee made surprise visits to eight places around the Valley.
He made a special trip to JL Patisserie following “Pastrygate,” the nickname of the online squabble that unfolded this month. A local influencer, whose given name is Aurora Griffo, ripped on JL Patisserie’s coffee, quiche and pastries in a since-deleted video. Griffo’s post caused a stir in part because it maligned an acclaimed French bakery. JL Patisserie was a semifinalist for Outstanding Bakery in the 2023 James Beard Awards and won local favorite Best Pastries from Phoenix New Times. It’s legit.
Jenna Leurquin, the owner of JL Patisserie, then clapped back at the review with her own post. She deftly addressed what she described as misleading and false comments about the ingredients the bakery uses. Leurquin also pointed to an attempted quid pro quo: The influencer had offered to provide a good review in exchange for comped food.
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Leurquin’s videos struck a nerve. Millions watched her response. People and the Today Show covered the dustup. Lee weighed in with his take, too. Locals rallied around the bakery, lining up at its three locations in Phoenix and Scottsdale to show their support. Griffo issued an apology and disappeared from social media. She told The Arizona Republic that she’s received “rape and death” threats and plans to move out of state.
The online storm had mostly subsided when Lee made a surprise visit Sunday to the bakery’s Scottsdale location, at the northeast corner of Shea Boulevard and Scottsdale Road. On Monday, he posted a video trying several bakes from JL Patisserie, calling it a place he’s “been dying to try.”
“I’m mind-blown,” Lee said of the experience his family had at the patisserie.
What Keith Lee tried at JL Patisserie
Lee ordered a chocolate croissant, an almond croissant, a pistachio cookie, pistachio macarons, a seasonal miso-mushroom danish and a black sesame cruffin stuffed with strawberry cremeux and black sesame mousse.
“This looks like the croissant we got when we was in Paris,” Lee said before gently compressing the chocolate croissant. Its delicate crackles made Lee giddily smile at someone off camera.
He marveled at the pastry’s buttery, flaky layers and fresh flavor, giving it a 9.2 out of his 10-point score. Lee, who admittedly doesn’t love almond croissants, gave that pastry a 7.6 and wasn’t into the savory danish, awarding it a 3.
It was the cruffin, a hybrid of a croissant and a muffin, that left Lee speechless.
“Oh my god, it’s a 10,” he said. The balance between the strawberry filling and the pastry, he said, was sublime.
Lee usually takes demure bites and covers his mouth when tasting food on camera. The cruffin had him sucking cremeux and sugar off his fingers and going in for another big bite.
“In my opinion, this is easily one of the best bakery shops I’ve ever been to,” he said. “And it’s not even close.”
The video ends with Lee walking into the bakery to speak with Leurquin. Lee gave the bakery $4,000, splitting it in half to provide tips to the entire baking team and the other half to pay for customers’ purchases.
Lee’s review of JL Patisserie has 6.7 million views on TikTok and counting.
Leurquin wasn’t supposed to be at the Scottsdale bakery that day, but she was pitching in to help – cleaning tables, helping customers, going wherever she was needed. When a staff member told Leurquin that Lee was in the bakery and wanted to speak with her, she was taken aback.
“I’m shaking because I didn’t even know you were here,” Leurquin said in the video.
Leurquin wasn’t familiar with Lee until Pastrygate. She was surprised and floored by his gift to her customers and team. That generosity paid for baked goods for about 100 customers, some of whom stopped to thank Lee and shake his hand.
Leurquin asked Lee if she could share the tip with her entire team, which is about 30 people, and he agreed.
“It’s going to be very rewarding for them, feeling like their work is being seen, because sometimes when you’re in the kitchen and you work so much, you don’t see how appreciated your product is,” she says.
Leurquin and her team made the decision last week to close on Tuesdays in addition to Mondays. That gives them another day to recover and prep for the crowds that have shown up over the last few weeks.
Following Lee’s visit, Leurquin knows those crowds may grow even bigger.
“I thought we were crazy the last two weeks, like really, really crazy,” Leurquin says. “Now I think maybe that was just a warm-up.”
JL Patisserie
4700 N. Central Ave., #121
2601 S. 24th St.
7342 E. Shea Blvd., #108, Scottsdale
