Do-It-All Chef Andrew Molen Opening Southampton Bakery Specializing in Healthy Fare

Making a living as a chef is always a labor-intensive undertaking. You really have to love what you do — and Andrew Molen is the kind of chef who oozes culinary joie de vivre.

For example, Molen will tell you that he couldn’t think of a more perfect way to spend his 42nd birthday than jumping behind a grill and logging eight or nine hours serving up traditional old school barbecue to a couple hundred of his closest friends. So that’s exactly what he did last year in Southampton Village.

“Seeing people smile, seeing their bellies full and happy. It makes everything I do worthwhile,” he says.

While he’s more than content to fire up burgers and dogs for the masses, Molen also has a serious foodie pedigree. He comes from a family of restaurateurs and he’s cooked in some of the most prestigious kitchens in the country with superstar chef/entrepreneurs like Gordon Ramsay, Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Todd English.

In addition to running a catering business, booking private chef gigs and consulting for multiple restaurants, Molen is currently a chef partner at Isola, an Italian eatery on Shelter Island.

And he’s only a few weeks away from opening a new bakery.

For the bakery venture, Molen has partnered with Karoline Cerqueira, owner and operator of KC Healthy Ways, which provides personal chef services, cooking classes and nutritional counseling in the Hamptons, New York City and Palm Beach.

Molen and Cerqueira are taking over the space at 17 Windmill Lane in Southampton Village. Locals will remember the spot as the former home of Village mainstay Ye Olde Bake Shoppe.

As Dan’s went to press, the partners were planning a soft opening for the new place, dubbed Windmill Lane Bakery, on or around July 4.

“We were up in the air about keeping the Bake Shoppe name,” Molen says. “The owners had built a great brand over the years — but it wasn’t for us to take.”

Molen notes that Windmill Lane Bakery definitely won’t be a warmed-over reboot of its predecessor. In addition to the kinds of baked goods you might expect to find on the main drag of an upscale resort town, the partners plan to dedicate a sizable chunk of their menu to healthier fare, paying particular attention to customers with dietary restrictions.

“There will be a big focus on baked goods that are vegan and gluten-free,” Molen says. “It’s hard to find healthy pastries and cookies that are also fabulous. We’re really going to be leaning that way, but we’ll still have things like good old fashioned chocolate croissants — and I’m even trying to slide a cannoli in there if I can.”

While he refers to himself as a Swiss Army knife, meaning he can cook anything, Molen admits that he’ll be leaning heavily on his partner to burnish the healthy eating side of the bakery’s ledger.

While Cerqueira is also a jack of all trades in the kitchen, she has broad experience creating  nuanced gluten-free, keto, vegetarian and vegan meals.

Molen may not yet be a master of all things healthy, but with stints at Jean-Georges at Topping Rose House, The Plaza Food Hall, Chez Josephine, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay at the London Hotel and other major eateries, he brings a world-class culinary CV to his bakery venture.

“When I was building my career, If you look at my resume, it seems like I bounced around a lot,” he says. “But I really didn’t. I knew what thumbprints I wanted. I knew what I needed to learn to get to where I am now.”

Some of the most valuable experience he gained during his more peripatetic days centered on learning exactly what it took to get a new eatery open for business.

“I’ve done so many restaurant openings,” he says. “It’s all about understanding the environment. Any time you open a place — in Southampton, Columbus, Ohio, L.A., Miami, wherever; everyone has different rules, regulations and approval processes. If you try to wiggle outside the rules, you’re not opening.”

When it comes to navigating the sometimes labyrinthine process of starting a business on the East End, Molen puts it succinctly, cautioning, “If you haven’t done this before, you have a lot of learning to do.”

Of all the boldfaced-name chefs he’s worked with, Molen credits Boston-based restaurateur, author and television personality Todd English as his most significant mentor.

“Todd English taught me the most,” he says, citing trips to France, China, Korea and India, where English encouraged him to sample as much local cuisine as he could.

“Todd exposed me to different foods, different cultures, different ideas, different styles. I got to see where the world was going food-wise,” he says. “I love to explore. If I didn’t have those opportunities, I probably would have joined the military to see the world.”

Both Molen’s eateries, Isola and Windmill Lane Bakery, will be taking part in this year’s Dan’s Chefs of the Hamptons on July 18 at the spectacular Sí Sí at EHP Resort & Marina. Visit DansTaste.com to get tickets.