Beaverton’s first French bakery and charcuterie: Le Four A Bois

Beaverton’s recognition as a dining destination for international cuisine began in its formative years as a farming community surrounded by rich, fertile “beaver dam” soil. Italians, Germans, and Swedes settled herein the late 1800s, bringing traditional dishes from their homelands. Fresh produce and dairy, locally grown hops, wheat, beef, and set the standard for future and new culinary experiences.

Chef Philippe Depuy, who had arrived in the United States from France in mid-1970s, set his sights on offering area residents and wholesale accounts a taste of authentic French pastries and breads when he and his wife Hilda opened Le Four a Bois (The Wood Oven) on SW Broadway Street in 1984. The former owner of Upper Crust and Le P’tit restaurants in Portland claimed his massive 15-ton wood-burning Fours chazal wood-fired oven was the only one of its kind in the world, 13’ wide x 7’ high, using sand at the bottom and in the specially-designed top that retained heat when the fire had gone out.

Customers could choose a variety of delectable baked pastries: pineapple Eugenie, chocolate sacher torte, pain au raisins, croissants, rye, country, and sourdough bread, rolls, and more. A selection of breakfast offerings, cheeses, wine, and sandwiches tempted patrons as well.

The business did well, opening a second restaurant and bakery in 1987 in Portland, then a third in 1988 in Progress Plaza shopping mall at SW Scholls Ferry Road and SW Hall Boulevard. French-born chef Alain Artiguelongue was chosen to prepare traditional French and European pastries, including baba au rum and religieuse–two pastry buns filled with vanilla crème and topped with chocolate.

Former Hilton Hotel chef Bill Demos prepared American foods for breakfast and lunch and baked muffins and cookies. French and American style wedding cakes were also available. Decorative and fancy breads would be baked in Beaverton, all other pastries in the Progress Plaza location.

Dupuy had planned to sell his breads in-house only but expanded to include wholesale sales to Hilton Hotel, Salty’s seafood and steak restaurant, Corno’s Food Market, Jake’s Famous Crawfish, and McCormick and Schmick’s in Portland and Wanigan’s Lounge at the Greenwood Inn in Beaverton.

By late 1990, however, Four a Bois was in financial distress. First Interstate Bank of Oregon, foreclosed on the business, ending Beaverton’s first French bakery and charcuterie.

By Ann Koppy, local historian.