From Haro to Logroño: A French soul in La Rioja
The story of Lady Joseph begins in 1926 in Haro, a small town in La Rioja on the railway line between Spain and France. Josephine Bernaud, a French woman from the Bordeaux region, had moved to her new adopted home — and missed the baked goods of her childhood from the very beginning. Instead of dwelling in nostalgia, she reached for the bowl: she sought the best flours from local mills, adapted the recipes of her childhood to Riojan ingredients, and baked paper-thin, crispy biscuits and crackers that combined both culinary worlds. Because Josephine was an exceptionally sociable person, she soon opened her Salon du Thé — a place where neighbors, travelers, and merchants who were waiting in Haro for the next train to Bordeaux came together. The tea house became the meeting point for an entire region. Later, the family moved to Logroño, the capital of La Rioja, where Lady Joseph is still based today.
Four generations, the same bowl
What Josephine Bernaud began, her descendants are continuing today in the fourth generation. The standard has remained what it was from the beginning: no palm oil, no flavorings, no preservatives, no industrial fats. Baking is done exclusively with natural ingredients — wheat flour from traditional stone grinding, extra virgin olive oil, coconut or sunflower oil depending on the recipe. The baking temperature remains deliberately low so that the aromas of the ingredients are fully preserved and the characteristic bite — thin, crispy, with substance — is achieved. Certain ingredients, including the house's own lemon curd made from local lemon juice, are processed specifically in-house. These manual steps, which have hardly changed in almost a century, are the core of the savoir-faire that the family consciously preserves.
Biscuits and crackers between two cultures
The Lady Joseph range reflects the dual heritage of the founder: French baking technique, Spanish ingredients. The shortbread line — Cashew Biscuit, Lemon Curd Biscuit, Caramel Biscuit, Sweet Love Cookies — follows the crumbly, buttery texture of the French confectionery tradition, while the cracker line picks up on regional influences. The Brittany Sea Salt and Olive Oil Cracker, for example, combines Breton sea salt with Spanish olive oil on a base of stone-ground flour — thin, crunchy, with a clear salt line on the finish. Many products are vegan. The biscuits and crackers go just as well with cheese and charcuterie boards as they do with tea or a glass of white wine — and remind us of what Josephine Bernaud had in mind: something good for on the go, with heritage in your luggage.
