Country loaves from Altbau. Photo: Liz Barclay
The last thing baker Chad Robertson and his team want at Altbau, their new 7,500-square-foot megabakery set to open this coming Thursday, October 29, is a line of people snaking down the sidewalk while they wait for bread, croissants, or cookies. They still expect the line; they just want to manage it. So they placed their front door at the end of a long, dedicated alleyway that pulls people in off the street as soon as they arrive and allows them to see (and smell) the baked goods that are waiting for them.
“Visibility into our production space is a big part of our storytelling,” says Jake Israel, a real-estate developer and one of Robertson’s partners. The bread room and a prep space give way to a glass-and-tile pastry counter and coffee station (with beans coming from Wisconsin’s Condor Coffee), and the big draw, of course, are Robertson’s baguettes, sourdough, and rye — which make ample use of West Coast grain varietals as well as einkorn, spelt, and rouge de Bordeaux wheat — along with pastries from chef Wei Si Phua (an alum of Radio Bakery). Cinnamon rolls and apple turnovers are in the cards, plus buckwheat financiers, a gooey twice-baked chocolate-banana pecan croissant dusted with powdered sugar, a cheesecake-stuffed croissant, and an “everything” croissant with chive cream cheese.
Baguettes.
Pastries get equal billing with the bread.
Green quiche.
A buckwheat einkorn chocolate cookie.
Huckleberry cream puff.
Twice-baked chocolate banana pecan croissant.
Photos Liz Barclay
To start, the Altbau team will be buying ingredients from spots including Brooklyn Granary and longtime Tartine supplier Cairnspring Mills but also has plans to eventually start milling its own grains with a stone mill, housed in a glass-encased room on the second floor, that will supply the bakery with, among other grains, einkorn. “We use a lot of einkorn in our pastries and bread,” Robertson says. “It’s very nutrient-dense, but it’s also very expensive, so milling our own is really the only way we can use a lot of it.” The team thinks that the results make the added expense and labor worth the tradeoff: It adds a uniquely nutty flavor to Altbau’s chocolate-chip cookie, while also making for a light, olive oil-enriched sandwich bread.
What about Wi-Fi? That won’t be offered, but Robertson hopes guests will head upstairs to Altbau’s seating area with modular stainless-steel furniture designed by Aidan Reinhold, a small, staff-curated library of books and magazines, and music coming from vintage hi-fi speakers on either side of the room.
That the space offers capacity for 150 guests, a pizza oven, six-burner stove, Rational combi oven, and an open chef’s kitchen, it’s well-equipped for special programming. It could play host to floral-arranging classes, private album-listening sessions, and kids’ workshops; pasta, pizza, and bread-making classes are also being discussed, as well as wine and spirits tastings that take advantage of the bakery’s liquor license. Altbau’s first pop-up, with Copenhagen’s Atelier September, also takes place on November 7 and 8. (It’s sold out.) “This neighborhood really activates around 8 p.m., and we want to take advantage of that commuter traffic,” says Israel, adding that the eventual goal is for Altbau to be open until 9 or 10 p.m. on weekdays, and 2 a.m. on weekends. “We want to be a place you can come to if you don’t want to go to a bar after work,” Israel says, “or if you want somewhere to hang out after dinner at a restaurant in the neighborhood.”
Altbau’s name translates, aptly, to “old building.” The upstairs space is able to accommodate events and parties, and features its own kitchen. Liz Barclay.
Altbau’s name translates, aptly, to “old building.” The upstairs space is able to accommodate events and parties, and features its own kitch… Altbau’s name translates, aptly, to “old building.” The upstairs space is able to accommodate events and parties, and features its own kitchen. Liz Barclay.
