Quick history quiz: What was the Marquis de Lafayette’s full name? If you answered Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, we’re impressed. But we know that Ivar Setiawan got that answer with no trouble. In fact, he named his Clifton bakery and café Motier in the marquis’s honor.
“I find it very beautiful,” says the Indonesian-born, French-bred restaurateur. “It’s a symbol of a long friendship between the United States and France.”
Setiawan is not a lifelong baker. In fact, he didn’t begin culinary school until he was 40. His mother, who lived in Clifton, had a stroke that year. “When she died, everything changed,” he recalls. “I decided to cook.”
And he wanted to do it in Clifton. He moved from France to Northern Virginia in January and opened Motier at the end of June. The petite eatery has just 14 seats, though Setiawan hopes to add 10 more soon.
His specialty is viennoiserie, or breakfast-y pastries like buttery croissants and burnt-bottomed canelés. A taste of the chocolate-almond croissant shows his expertise not only with flaky laminated dough, but also with flavor.
Tarts include fruit and chocolate ganache with pastry so thin that it shatters as soon as a fork penetrates it. Croissants and baguettes stuffed with fillings like house-roasted chicken and ham await in the case, too.
A small lunch menu changes daily and is written on a chalkboard at the front of the restaurant. On weekends, dishes such as coq au vin and boeuf bourguignon join fresh, simple eats like ratatouille and a salad crowned with goat cheese in a phyllo packet.
It’s Setiawan’s way of giving back to his mother’s adopted hometown—from France, with love.
Feature image by Rey Lopez
This story originally ran in our October issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to our monthly magazine.
