“You can tell a lot from the way the levain smells versus the way it tastes,” the breadmaker says. “The aroma turns into flavor.”
After the loaves have cooled slightly on a board, Beitcher grabs a baguette and holds it to his ear, gently compressing it to release a soft crackle. A swift slice reveals what he’s after: an eggshell-thin, crisp crust with an open crumb inside.
Beitcher refined his knowledge of artisan sourdough baking during his eight-year tenure at the James Beard Award-winning Tartine Bakery in San Francisco. The California bakery, founded by Chad Robertson and Elisabeth Prueitt in 2002, quickly gained notoriety for its artisan sourdough breads and pastries, which drew long lines of customers.
Beitcher calls Robertson the “godfather of the entire artisan sourdough bread movement in the U.S.”
“He created this iconic sourdough loaf that’s been the inspiration for a ton of bakers everywhere,” he says.
Sourdough took on a new status during the pandemic, when crafting rounds became a popular pastime. The bakery’s best-selling cookbook, “Tartine Bread,” is considered a kind of breadbaking bible for home cooks and chefs alike.
A swift slice into the baguette reveals what Beitcher is after: an eggshell-thin, crisp crust with an open crumb inside.
Sara Crocker
A dynamic duo
That reputation is also what attracted baker Mark Chacón, who staged with Tartine's pastry team in 2008 and 2009. Chacón returned to the Valley in 2018 to teach culinary classes. Three years later, he launched his own bakery, focused on pastries and desserts. Chacónne Patisserie first popped up at farmers markets and expanded to supply local coffee shops and restaurants around the Valley. Chacón opened a brick-and-mortar bakery in the former La Belle Vie Bakery in Scottsdale late last year. When he toured the space, located on Roosevelt Street and Hayden Road, it was outfitted with a large deck oven and a heavy-duty stand mixer.
“If we have access to all this bread equipment, maybe this is the universe telling me that I should start a bread program,” Chacón says he remembers thinking.
He reached out to Beitcher about a possible partnership with his award-winning bakery and a move to the Valley.
“He’s got a lot of poise and grace,” Chacón says of Beitcher. “Of course, he has incredibly high standards, and he has a real innate feel for the doughs that he’s handling.”
Beitcher arrived in the Valley in March. Since then, he has incrementally built a selection of naturally leavened breads that started with baguettes and country bread and has grown to include focaccia, loaves of deli rye, and boules made with jalapeno and cheddar or porridge and flax seeds.
“I feel like it’s just like planting the S.F. roots here. That Tartine-style bread is what I know and, I think, what Mark and I both really love,” Beitcher says. “We’re just kind of bringing that to Phoenix.”
A 'more nourishing' career
Before he started baking, Beitcher worked at some of the country’s most prestigious restaurants, including Thomas Keller’s three Michelin-starred fine dining restaurant Per Se in New York and Alice Waters’ pioneering farm-to-table restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California.In 2012, Beitcher was burned out from cooking but wanted to stay in the world of food. He decided to explore breadmaking.
“It just kind of dawned on me that, compared to cooking at a restaurant, I really loved making a product that people would take home and just plop down on the table,” he says. “It felt like a more nourishing, for me, way to stay involved with food.”
If he was going to study the art of bread, Beitcher decided it had to be at Tartine. He started there in 2012, initially thinking that learning sourdough breadmaking would be something he'd pick up quickly and then move on.
"Because, you know, how difficult can it be to make bread?" he says. "After two years, I was still completely lost."
Over time, the baker mastered those skills. That's what led he and Chacón to build a friendship. Chacón was plotting a return to Arizona, with the goal of teaching culinary classes. To land the gig, he needed to demonstrate how to make bread. He returned to Tartine and studied with Beitcher, then Tartine’s head baker.
Chacón learned a lot, and landed the job. But he couldn't help feeling a little disappointed.
“What a shame,” Chacón recalls thinking. “I wish that Nick and I had been working together for years. I really like this guy; he’s real down to earth.”
Once back in the Valley, Chacón kept in touch with Beitcher, who launched artisan bagel and granola businesses in San Francisco. The two bonded over running small culinary outfits. Beitcher says Chacón would occasionally suggest he come work in the Valley, and when Chacón secured the Scottsdale bakery, the timing aligned. Beitcher had closed his bagel business at the end of 2024, and decided to trade San Francisco's foggy days for sunshine in Phoenix.
Coffee and pastry powerhouses Julia Peixoto Peters and Mark Chacón are teaming up on a downtown cafe.
Sara Crocker
Sandwiches, toasts coming downtown
At the Patisserie, Chacón has given Beitcher free rein with the breads. Beitcher uses a sourdough starter that he brought from San Francisco and flours sourced from Washington and Gilbert's Hayden Flour Mills. The doughs are wet and have a long fermentation.“The goal with this style of breadmaking is to get as much water into the dough as possible, so that you can cook the grain as thoroughly as possible. That’s why we end up with this very slack dough,” Beitcher says while standing in the bakery’s kitchen, stretching the dough vertically. It wiggles with the slight shake of his hand. “By the time it ferments over 24 hours, it’s not tangy at all, it’s just this very mild yogurty acidity, and it lets you taste the grain versus just sourdough.”
The duo's partnership started with breads, but Beitcher will also develop the food menu for CP Coffee and Pâtisserie, a new project Chacón has in the works. The downtown Phoenix cafe is a dual concept combining Chacónne's bakes with drinks from the celebrated East Valley business Peixoto Coffee Roasters. The new spot is anticipated to open on Sept. 25.
Beitcher says the all-day menu will grow as the cafe gets up and running. Although the menu is still being finalized, diners can expect salads, a few breakfast sandwiches, such as a classic bacon, egg and cheese, and lunch stacks prepared on focaccia and flatbread, piled with sliced turkey or vegetables. He also hopes to offer toasts, the simple European open-faced sandwiches that were popularized in the U.S. by bakeries like Tartine.
He is also crafting new menu items for the Scottsdale bakery, including sourdough pizza. Beitcher describes the pies as somewhere between Neapolitan and a New York-style, with simple but elevated toppings such as confit garlic and Swiss chard or pepperoni with pickled Fresno chiles. The pizzas are planned to be available Friday through Sunday, starting later this month.
Chacónne Patisserie's bread selection includes baguettes, country bread and loaves made with porridge and flax seed.
Sara Crocker
“(Beitcher)’s extremely creative, really talented, just has the perfect palate for what it is that we’re trying to do here," Chacón says.
So far, Beitcher says he and his breads have received a warm reception in the Valley, noting that "the customers here and the community here are just fantastic."
Now, several years in the making, these two friends – and baking powerhouses – are getting a chance to combine their talents.
“I have tremendous respect for Mark as a baker and as a person,” Beitcher says. “It’s still just two friends hanging out; we just happen to be making bread and pastries while we’re hanging out.”
