Computing low-rank approximations of a given function is a key step for implementing efficiently numerous algorithms in various fields, including the discretisation of non-local integral operators and Isogeometric Analysis. The adaptive cross approximation (ACA) algorithm is an efficient method requiring few computational resources introduced by Bebendorf. We introduce in the present paper the new paradigm of approximating the given function by a piecewise low-rank function with C1-regularity. The proposed approximation is based on the ACA algorithm and our main contribution is the extension of the interpolation property characterising this algorithm to Hermite interpolation. Therefore, we introduce a new method for low-rank Hermite interpolation using a limiting case of the ACA algorithm. The proposed method has full approximation order. We then propose a piecewise low-rank approximation with adaptive refinement using either the ACA algorithm or our new method to compute each piece. We finally compare the results obtained for the two methods.