Maddie Rider Rees walks around the dining room on Church Street, making sure the tables are set just right just before Cafe Viola opens for lunch. She heads to the kitchen to work on her latest creation as the restaurant’s pastry chef.
The ambience in the small kitchen is one of pleasant, positive energy, with the half-dozen staff members doing tasks in a focused manner. “I’m creating what I call ‘The Fruit of the Forest Tart,’” explains Rees. “It’s a dark chocolate and blackberry frangipane tart.” As she bends over the sheet of desserts, her steady hand squeezing out what she calls a ‘mirror glaze’ over mounds of blackberry mousse, she adds, “The glaze has to be cooled to 35 degrees [to look glossy].”
Rees has been in the kitchen since 6:30 a.m. and is usually still there until 4:30. “I’m in charge of the tea service in the afternoons,” she says. The guests for the afternoon tea are usually about a dozen or so, but “We do a half-tea as well because it’s geared more for kids,” she says. “I have three kids, ages 3, 5 and 7, so I wanted to offer something to appeal to kids. We make all our biscuits and homemade brioche. As far as tea offerings go, we have jasmine, chamomile, English breakfast and Earl Grey.”
When asked what her first dessert to create was, she laughs and says, “It was a birthday cake for Dad and it was terrible. I may have added too much baking soda, and we couldn’t eat it.” Despite this initial disappointment, she says she developed a love for cooking early. “Growing up in my parents’ kitchen, we watched them cook for guests and make up dishes based on what they had on hand.” Her college days seemed to leave her undecided about her life’s career path. “I went to Huntington College in Montgomery,” she says, “and kept changing my major. After two years, I took a break and went home. I began as the salad person at my folks’ restaurant, R Bistro, and when their pastry chef quit, I took over his job.” She then began to study different pastry chefs’ styles to learn about the methodology and science behind the art.
Her big “Aha!” moment came, though, when she was watching a 2010 movie called The Kings of Pastry. “It’s a competition where 16 pastry chefs compete in Lyons, France, for three days,” she explains. “The winner was declared Meilleurs Ouvriers de France (Best Craftsman in France.) The winner was awarded the MOF collar with blue, white and red stripes, showing they had reached the ultimate recognition for every pastry chef. Chefs Jacquy Pfeiffer and Sebastien Canonne were contributing chefs and models for that show. I discovered they ran a school called The French Pastry School in Chicago.” Rees went through the school’s six-month pastry program. “It was the most amazing experience of my life,” she says, her eyes lighting up at the memory. “They had chefs from all over the world come and teach classes.”
When she returned to Fairhope, she once again worked at R Bistro. She met her future husband, Dillon Rees, and they married in 2016. Eventually, she and her husband decided to open their own restaurant, once more with the support of Maddie’s father, Joe Rider. “But Dillon is also a big reason why we’re successful,” Maddie adds. “When I can’t be here, he is.” Cafe Viola opened in May 2024 and is named after Maddie’s paternal grandmother. “Part of the inspiration is I like to use microgreens and botanicals, edible decorations for my pastries. She was that kind of cook, and I like to think that she would be pleased with the restaurant.”
Looking around the beautifully decorated and inviting dining room, Rees smiles and says, “What makes me so passionate about what I do? It’s the ability to be creative and make people smile, give them something unique they can’t get anywhere else. That gives me a lot of satisfaction.” Rees says she makes about 100 pastries a week. “My desserts are called ‘entremets’ because of the style they’re decorated with. Every tempered chocolate has to be heated and then cooled. It gives it a stable crystalline structure and makes the finished product pretty.”
Her pastries are her own unique creations. “I test pastries on the kitchen staff before serving them to our guests, and they love it, being the test group,” she says with a laugh. Then she gets serious and says, “This [being a chef] is a male-dominated field, but I want to inspire females to enter it. Our head chef, Kaylyn Durham, is a woman. I want more people to understand that this isn’t something you get into because it’s a job. It’s something about which you must be passionate. I love making people happy and hope to inspire more young people, especially females, to enter this field. I am very lucky that my dad has given me so much creative control, not only over pastries but also over menu items. He trusts me to be a leader.”
