File: Oliver Parini
Crème brûlée cake at Mirabelles
Slightly more than a year after being listed for sale for $1.3 million,
Mirabelles Bakery in South Burlington has new owners. Cofounder Alison Lane confirmed that she and Andrew Silva have sold their 34-year-old bakery to Jake and Alexandria Kent of Fairfax for an undisclosed price.
Lane, 60, and Silva, 62, met as students at the now-closed New England Culinary Institute before launching their bakery and café in Burlington in 1990. In early 2020, they
moved Mirabelles to 3060 Williston Road, where they continued to bake and cook for takeout and wholesale orders.
When
Seven Days reported that the beloved bakery was on the market in July 2023, Lane said she and Silva were "ready not to think about it so much." After helping with the transition, Lane said, she is looking forward to enjoying "so many things I put aside."
File: Oliver Parini
Mirabelles founders Alison Lane and Andrew Silva in their original bakery in Burlington in 2020
Jake Kent, 38, said he and his wife are longtime Mirabelles customers who "started going there as kids." His favorite menu item is key lime pie, and Alexandria's is the chocolate layer cake. "The goal is really not to change much at all," Jake said.
After working in financial planning for about 17 years, Jake was ready for something new, he said. His wife has an MBA from Norwich University. Her mother, longtime Norwich employee Allison Crowson, will run the bakery's front end.
While none of the family members has a culinary background, they hired Rachel Cemprola as head chef on
Lane and Silva's advice. Over her 13-year culinary career, Cemprola, 34, has worked in Palm Beach, Fla., and Waco, Texas. Most recently, she helped open Le Marché Café in Shelburne, where she was head pastry chef for about two years.