Can friendship survive a war, migration to another country, and life’s ups and downs? One group of friends from former Yugoslavia has demonstrated that a strong friendship bond can overcome any tribulation.
There’s Uliks Fehmiu, an Albanian who loves acting and still participates in film projects in Serbian and Bosnian; Bane Stamenkovic, whom Mr. Fehmiu first met when he was 7, then going through high school and later mandatory military service together; Igor Ivanovic, who played a pivotal role in Pain d’Avignon’s founding but later left to start his own bakery; and Vojin Vujosevic, who was always the cool kid in the group.
They all eventually made their way to New York to escape getting drafted into the war and, incidentally, fell into the world of baking. Together, they formed Pain d’Avignon, a boutique wholesale bakery for high-end restaurants and hotels in New York. In 2009, the bakery expanded to offer their selections to ordinary New Yorkers via cafes, opening four retail stores alongside pop-ups within hotels across the city.
The path to success wasn’t easy, but every step was buoyed by the knowledge that there was no turning back to the violence and hatred back home. Whatever hardships they would go through, they would go through them together as friends.
A Friendship Forged
Growing up in Yugoslavia before the Yugoslav Wars broke up the Balkan Peninsula, the group of friends lived in a place not unlike New York: Different cultures and religions intersected in a region bordered by Italy, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Albania. “It’s where Austro-Hungarian and Oriental architecture clash beautifully. Where one could ski in the Alps in the morning and swim in the Adriatic that afternoon. Where, in the same pastry shop, one could find baklava by way of Turkey or Greece and Sachertorte compliments of the Viennese,” wrote Mr. Fehmiu in the bakery’s 2022 cookbook, “The Pain d’Avignon Baking Book.” It was an idyllic time filled with beautiful memories for the four childhood friends.
When, in the late 1980s, tensions ran high and war seemed imminent, the friends each found ways to escape the draft. Mr. Ivanovic became the reason they ended up in baking. After he got discharged from mandatory military service, he headed straight to New York. While there, he hung out with fellow Serbs, some of whom worked for Eli Zabar, a popular bakery and supermarket in the city. He soon found a job delivering bread at Eli’s.
Mr. Stamenkovic joined his family in New York (his father was a textile executive and moved there for business) as soon as he finished military service, while Mr. Vujosevic returned to America for studies at the persuasion of his parents, who saw an increasingly volatile situation back home and wanted him to stay away. For several years, Mr. Fehmiu was the only one remaining in Belgrade, hoping to develop his acting career. But by spring 1992, things came to a head. The military police came looking for him. With his mother’s warning, he was able to stay at a friend’s house and later flee to Macedonia. From there, he made his way to New York.
Bakery Adventures
While Mr. Ivanovic was visiting his girlfriend’s mother’s summer house in Cape Cod, he realized that the Massachusetts seaside town lacked good bakeries. He began making deliveries of Eli’s artisanal bread to local restaurants there; chefs clamored for the opportunity to get fresh baguettes and sourdoughs from him. When Mr. Ivanovic realized that bread should be made close to where it is sold, he began making plans for what would become Pain d’Avignon. The friends and their family members pooled together money to start their first business venture in America.None of them had baking experience. But luckily, Mr. Ivanovic convinced one of Eli’s bakers, a Bosnian, to leave Eli’s and join Pain d’Avignon. The baker did not write down recipes; he mixed dough purely by its look and feel. The friends learned by observing.
Mr. Fehmiu had two huge tomes on French baking. “I would have these pages from the book copied and faxed over to my mom in Belgrade to her theater. And she will translate them over there because it was much cheaper than if we translate that in Boston,” he recalled.
By word of mouth, Pain d’Avignon soon earned a glowing reputation beyond the Cape and Boston; customers from Manhattan began requesting that their local stores carry Pain d’Avignon’s breads. It was time to make the leap to New York.
The bakery came of age at a time when the American public became more conscious about where its food came from and desired high-quality food products. In the early ’90s, at a time before such an approach to food was ubiquitous, Pain d’Avignon stood out for its handmade, small-scale baking. “We were also very fortunate to ride this wave. … This somehow seamlessly coexisted with our own values and the way we work,” Mr. Fehmiu said, reflecting on how he and his partners came from the Old World tradition of buying local, seasonal ingredients and cooking accordingly. They also pursued bread-making the old-school way, learning to toy with fermentation to get different results and valuing the time it took to master the craft.
The partners found a warehouse in Queens, New York, to start baking. Some days were really tough. Mr. Stamenkovic recalled: “Bakeries are 24/7. … So you’re not only making the bread, but you’re also in packaging, you’re also in distribution. You’re in customer service. But there’s no drivers, there is nobody to pack the bread, nobody to take the phone call. So it’s you.” It was routine for them to work 15- to 18-hour days.
The friends began experimenting with different bread recipes to offer new creations to New Yorkers. They were a hit. Many specialty food stores, as well as restaurants and hotels, began serving Pain d’Avignon’s breads. In those days, the bakery was still getting on its feet. They didn’t earn much. “We ate dumplings on a good day,” Mr. Stamenkovic said. But at St. Regis, a hotel where their breads were served, “the soup was $35, $40. … It was just very, very surreal to become part of that type of restaurant scene that was ever-changing and everybody from all over the world came here to see, and to learn, to be part of,” he added.
But the bakery didn’t just cater to the high-end crowd. It was just as willing to serve its goods at a three-Michelin-star restaurant as a small eatery that bought three or five loaves of bread a day for its customers. “It costs you more to do all of that, put it in the bag, and deliver. … You don’t do that for financial purposes. You do it because you love what they do and you believe in what they do,” Mr. Stamenkovic said.
What do the friends credit their success to? Ultimately, Mr. Fehmiu said it’s the strength of their friendship. No matter where they were, they understood each other without having to say much. Their chemistry came from “accepting each other and understanding what it is that we are expecting from one another, and not trying to change and mold [the other],” he said. Despite the hardships of escaping war and starting life as immigrants to a new country, they had each other through it all. Mr. Fehmiu’s father once tried to persuade him to pursue other opportunities. “I was not interested. The only thing I was interested in was that we are together, whatever it is.”
They found their way to conduct business together and, at the same time, nurture their friendship. “It’s jazzing. It’s improvising. … It’s actually understanding the rules of the band, how do we jazz within the orchestra, and somehow, we’ve been jazzing pretty good.”
