It was a good sign. When we arrived at Tartine, Pasadena’s newest bakery cafe, nestled into a shady block of Green Street near the Norton Simon Museum, the morning’s breakfast rolls and pastries had long been swooped up, just in time to prepare for a gathering lunch crowd.
The Pasadena shop is the fifth LA-area bakery for the Northern California-based small chain, and has already begun creating its own buzz among its neighbors and local bread lovers.
As Director of Culinary Operations Max Blachman-Gentile outlined the store’s history for us recently, the bakery began as a small independent bakery on Guerrero Street in San Francisco, more than twenty years ago.
Before that, founders Liz Pruitt and Chad Roberts, then married, had taken their mutual love for bread and pastries and poured it all into their small company, which, from their own farm, served farmers’ markets in and around the Point Reyes area of Marin County.
He was bread. She was pastries.
For five years, they stayed small and continued to provide their wares to local outlets. They opened the Guerrero Street store in 1996. One major factor in their success was the idea of baking their naturally leavened bread in the late afternoon, making bread available for homes right out of the oven for dinner.
In fact, Roberts 2010 book, “Tartine Bread,” was called, “The most beautiful bread book yet published” by the The New York Times.
Their well-earned success led to four stores in the Bay Area, five in Los Angeles, and six more in Seoul, Korea, of all places.
But on to the food.
Our lunch began with crunchy slices of the famous Tartine bread, thickly crusted, darkly toasted, and speckled with air holes. With butter and jam, it was like starting with dessert. Until we had dessert, that is.
We had asked Blachman-Gentile to surprise us, so after the toast came a breakfast sandwich with a fluffy egg patty, avocado and greens on a brioche bun. (Bacon, cheese, and aioli, is also available.)
“Light and fluffy,” said my dining partner. As Max explained, the eggs are steamed in the cooking process to give them that airy touch.
I worked on the pressed turkey sandwich, stuffed between large mid-loaf slices of the Tartine bread, melted cheese and pesto. It was quite a few minutes of steady work to finish, but sometimes hard work is its own reward, as someone, maybe a Tartine customer, once said.
“That sandwich is my favorite,” Max admitted.
Given that the morning’s pastries were long gone upon our arrival, we settled for the notion that if the pastries were as good as the sandwiches, no one would leave Tartine unfilled or unhappy.
There was, fortunately, a lone survivor of the morning rush, a sweet Lemon Tart, with a snap-fresh crust, a medium twirl of whipped cream, and what appeared to be a petunia petal on top.
No matter. I downed it all.
From our vantage point, it was easy to see why, after only two weeks, Max told us, Tartine already has “regulars,” literally raising a toast every morning, presumably, with coffee.
Tartine Pasadena, 277 W. Green St, Pasadena, CA. (626) 282-1981. pasadena@tartinebakery.com.