Local ‘cookie dealers’ open bakery with fusion-inspired treats in Charlotte
Forget the cookie-cutter classics. A new bakery with a rotating menu of desserts made with a tasty twist is now open in Charlotte.
Years after selling sweets at local farmers markets, the “trusted cookie dealers” behind La Bonbonnière Bakery opened their first storefront.
Valentina Lopez has been dishing out desserts in Charlotte since 2023, but this has been a sweet dream years in the making — and one that started across the globe.
With hopes of becoming a pastry chef, she secured a professional cooking degree and chocolatier certification in Venezuela and “turned her love for baking into a dream” in 2016, making different chocolate desserts, according to her website.
“I’ve always loved sweets so much, and it was very easy for me to try to choose a path in this cuisine journey,” the founder and pastry chef told CharlotteFive.
Fast forward a few years, she and her husband moved to Charlotte — and she took on a new title as a mother, which she credits for bringing her back to a culinary career.
“My life as a baker was far from my current life, so it was thanks to my baby and my postpartum that I started to bake again … but my husband pushed me to make it official,” she explained. “He was like, ‘Valentina. I think this is the time to make your great comeback.’”
“I was so afraid to make it again here because I knew no one. Literally, no one. So I was thinking, ‘I don’t know how I can have this place in this new country and a new language.’”
But that didn’t stop them. Determined that she could do it, her husband Ludwing Romero Funicello (later turned co-owner) helped her share her homemade cookies with friends and coworkers before it basically became “a community-centered bakery.” That’s how La Bonbonnière Bakery 2.0 — as Lopez calls it — came to be.
Two years and several pop-ups around the city later, they’ve got a permanent space to sell their freshly baked and flavor-packed sweet and savory cookies in the heart of uptown.
‘Everything but a classic cookie’
“They have their own personality,” Lopez said of the cookies. “I started making those inspired by the New York-style cookies that are super thick and super ‘ooey gooey’ inside, but somewhere in the middle turn out different. They are not regular cookies. They are our kind.”
Tracing back to their Latin and European roots, some of the cookies even incorporate international ingredients, like the Churrito Dulce de Leche cookie, filled with Argentinian dulce de leche, and the Royal Dubai chocolate chip cookie.
Here’s a look at some of the bakery’s other sweet and savory cookie flavors:
Biscoffmaniac cookie, made with Lotus Biscoff cream and crispy cookie topping
Breakfast at Tiffany’s cookie, made with brown butter and maple glaze, topped with bacon
Glazed lemon donut cookie, made with golden lemon Oreos and topped with a lemon glaze
Hazelnutholic cookie, made with chocolate chips, toasted hazelnuts pieces, Nutella and Ferrero Rocher.
Sweet Caroline cookie, made with pecans and dulce de leche, topped with homemade salted caramel.
La Bonbonnière Bakery’s catalog also includes brownies and crookies (croissant-cookies) — but with a weekly rotating menu, it’s a surprise which flavors you’ll be able to treat yourself to.
“We have more than 35 flavors, so of course we try to change the lineup,” she said. “That way people can have a cookie hunt, so they are chasing their favorite cookie. If it’s not available this week, it may be next week.”
Her husband also has the role of bakery barista, whipping up lattes, cappuccinos and more.
“We really are putting our hearts in this, and for us, it’s quality over quantity.” Lopez said.
Following a successful grand opening with a sellout crowd, Lopez says this new chapter feels pretty surreal.
“As immigrants, it’s pretty hard to just feel like you belong — and somehow, this is making us feel like this is the right fit for us,” she explained. “Like Charlotte is welcoming us with wide arms open and I just feel so much gratitude.”
La Bonbonnière Bakery will also continue to offer nationwide shipping and be available at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market and Uptown Farmers Market.
La Bonbonnière Bakery
Location: 329 S Tryon St, Charlotte, NC 28282
Cuisine: Gourmet cookies
Instagram: @labonbonnierebakery
This story was originally published April 25, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
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