Andre Chin, baker and co-owner of Artisan Boulanger Patissier, has died at 65

Andre Chin, 65, a baker and pastry artist who with his wife, Amanda Eap, ran the popular Artisan Boulanger Patissier. in South Philadelphia, died Saturday, July 16, at his South Philadelphia home after a seven-year battle with prostate cancer.

The couple, working side by side since 2002 with few helpers, have supplied breads, rolls, croissants, sandwiches, and pastries not only to the neighborhood around Passyunk Crossing but also to a list of banh mi shops that use their crispy-on-the-outside, tender-on-the-inside French baguettes. The shop, at 1218 Mifflin St., had to close sporadically over the last couple of years because of Mr. Chin’s health and after Eap was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021.

She said the bakery would reopen in about a month. A newer family-owned Artisan bakery in Media, Delaware County, will open this week, but will close temporarily afterward as she regroups, she said.

Mr. Chin, a soft-spoken, easygoing man, was regarded for his generosity and especially his soft touch with children visiting the shop.

A native of Cambodia, at age 15 he fled the war raging in Southeast Asia and landed in France, where he studied cooking and baking in Paris. He was working at a Paris hotel in the 1980s when, during a visit to Philadelphia, he walked into the West Philadelphia doughnut shop owned by Eap’s father.

“I think he fell in love with me the minute he saw me,” Eap said. “I saw him walk in and said, ‘What a good-looking Korean guy.’ Then I found out he was Cambodian.”

Mr. Chin returned to France, but they courted long-distance. Eap said he proposed and she flew to Paris to marry him in 1990. She sponsored him for U.S. citizenship three months later, and they settled in South Philadelphia, where they raised sons Nicholas, 28, a pharmacist, and Ryan, 22, a student. “We have never been apart since,” she said.

In April 2002, they opened Artisan on the corner of 12th and Morris Streets, two doors from their home at the time and a hundred feet off of East Passyunk Avenue. The neighborhood then was a largely Italian enclave. Though French- and Italian-style baking have similar qualities, it took time for the neighbors to accept an Asian couple as business owners, Eap said.

» READ MORE: Artisan Boulanger Patisserie: Of baguettes and banh mi

Inquirer columnist Rick Nichols, in a 2003 article, called Artisan “a fish out of water” and praised “the big, sunny-faced egg custard pies and sweet, light peach croissants, lush disks of chocolate mousse, and plump, flour-dusted footballs of sourdough, their crusts split and dark as old leather.”

Around that time, a customer who worked for Air France arranged for the couple to deliver mini-Danish, baguettes, and croissants to the airline’s caterer at Philadelphia International Airport. French baking, French airline, South Philly sourcing. After Nichols’ article, the business really took off.

In 2013, they moved Artisan to the current location, a five-minute walk away. That same year, as well as in 2015 and 2016, the couple jointly made the list of semifinalists for the James Beard Award for baker.

Meanwhile, their younger son, Ryan, said he remembered his parents getting up at 4 a.m. to start work. “He was so hard-working,” he said. “Selfless. He never had time for his own things.” Even when he was sick, Mr. Chin was “doing his best,” he said. “He never went off track.”

During the couple’s health struggles in 2021, a customer created a GoFundMe account, which exceeded its $100,000 target.

Besides his wife and sons Nicholas and Ryan, he is survived by a son Jean-Jacques; two grandchildren; and a brother.

A viewing will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, July 22 at Vincent Gangemi Funeral Home, 2232-40 S. Broad St.. A traditional Buddhist service will be held 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, July 23, with services starting at 8 a.m. Sunday, July 24, at Preah Buddha Rangsey Temple, 2400 S. Sixth St., Philadelphia.