Born and raised in Riverside, California, head pastry chef and owner Emily McCune traveled and lived all over the country before moving to Minnesota and calling Fergus Falls home in 2011. With baking memories as far back as five years old, Emily has been baking her whole life, learning her first shortcake biscuit at 10 years old from her uncle Johnny. Emily started her first professional bakery business in 2020, Sugar High Bakery and Confections, but her travels to France in 2023 and Spain in 2024 inspired her to bring home a taste of the traditional neighborhood pâtisserie to Fergus Falls. She enrolled in the Baking and Pastry program with  Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts in 2024 and, combined with her background in Sustainable Food Production and Agriculture and a new Associate’s Degree in Professional Pastry Arts, Emily married her two biggest passions in 2026 to open Coquette, our region’s first farm-to-table French Pâtisserie.

When she isn’t baking, Emily enjoys running, working out, cooking, international travel, live music, trivia, board games with her family, napping, movies, reading, hiking, and spending time with her cats, Cleo and Peanut. She is very active in her recovery community and celebrated seven years clean in 2026.