Sunday News: Anastasia's brings European rye, cardamom knots to North Tonawanda
Culinary Passport on sale, national press for Buffalo eats, where to buy fresh masa
Imagine a reality show with a professor dad, a baker mom, and their four school-age boys living in a 1,135-square-foot townhouse.
What’s the twist? A demanding roommate: mom’s baking business, requiring mixing, proofing, baking, icing, and packing 1,050 loaves, cookies, cardamom knots, and other risen sweets each week.
Anastasia Nikolaeva and Alexander Nikolaev were too busy with life to think of setting up cameras. What they do have to offer the world is even better: Anastasia’s Artisan Bread Bakery & Cafe, 236 Zimmerman St., North Tonawanda.
After they bought the building, and rehabbed it themselves, they opened the bakery six weeks ago.
For three years, Nikoleva and her family ran the bakery business out of their townhouse. Thousand-item waves of bread, cookies, rolls, and treats rolled out to farmers markets in North Tonawanda, Williamsville, and Kenmore.
“I would wake up at 4:30, do my stuff, and then I had to stop at seven. I would not be able to resume until nine,” she said. “I would bake it overnight, and we would sell it the next morning at the markets.”
The couple, from Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, moved to the United States in 2004, where Alexander worked on his industrial engineering doctorate in Champaign, Illinois.
“We had our first born, and then I was a part of a mom's group,” Nikolaeva said. “One of the moms baked bread. She's like, ‘Yeah, it's easy.’ When my husband got a position here in Buffalo, I started baking bread because we were a PhD student family on a very low budget.”
Now Alexander is an associate professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University at Buffalo. Nikoleva also got an engineering masters at UB. Just in case you were wondering what sort of people can run a bakery while getting four children off to school without suffering a nervous breakdown.
An observant Russian Orthodox, Nikoleva and her family eat vegan diets before major feast days like Christmas and Easter. As she broadened her baking repertoire, she developed vegan versions of favorite recipes, using oil instead of butter, aquafaba instead of egg, and other tweaks that still produced craveable results.
Dark rye bread, favored by northern Europeans, is now available every week in North Tonawanda, along with baguettes, cardamom knots, poppyseed rolls, and even a gluten-free item: the diminutive French cakes called financiers.
“I always knew that I wanted a little cute bakery, from the very beginning,” said Anastasia Nikolaeva. “Okay, I'm here. I'm from Russia. I love my culture. How can I introduce it to people? Food is the best.”
(With reporting by Joe Genco)
Anastasia’s Artisan Bread Bakery & Cafe
236 Zimmerman St., North Tonawanda, anastasiasbread.com, 716-906-4135
Hours: 8 a.m.-1 p.m. daily.
REVIEW: Most Buffalo Puerto Rican restaurants focus on meals to go, especially since the pandemic mostly ended table service. The most notable exception is El Encanto, 257 Virginia St. On the ground floor of a shiny new seniors apartment building, Melissa Morales’ squeaky-clean dining room offers a feast for the eyes before satisfying your stomach. Check it out if you’d prefer to enjoy your pernil and maduros at your leisure, in snazzy surroundings, or just textbook Puerto Rican hits. (Later today, for patrons.)
BUFFALO CLIPS
Buffalo’s reputation as an eating city was bolstered by two appearances in the national spotlight last week.
Esquire magazine’s Best New-Wave Texas-Style Barbecue Joints in America included Southern Junction, Ryan Fernandez’s Indian-inflected barbecue joint at 365 Connecticut St.
An artisanal bakery in Buffalo reimagines Wonder Bread is Adam Reiner’s Civil Eats deep dive on Stephen Horton and Jill Colella’s homage to the Buffalo baking history giant at Miller’s Thumb Bakery & Cafe in Tonawanda.
Horton, a master miller and baker, worked through a dozen failures to create a loaf made from better ingredients that still that evokes Wonder Bread’s signature tenderness. The article takes readers step-by-step through Horton’s journey to a loaf of bread that now has its own fanbase.
“There’s a loyal following to that bread,” Colella told Reiner. “If we stopped selling it, we would definitely hear about it.”
PASSPORTS ON SALE
The New York State Restaurant Association’s WNY Culinary Passport raises money for training local culinary students, and FeedMore WNY.
Buy one for $40, and get $10 or more off meals at 30 participating restaurants, like Ilio DiPaolo’s, Pizza Plant, The Shamus, Brick Oven Bar & Grille, French’s Pub, Glen Park Tavern, Ristorante Lombardo, Mulberry Italian Ristorante, and Forno Napoli.
To get yours, order here.
ASK THE CRITIC:
Q: Can I buy freshly made corn tortillas in Buffalo?
Alex, Buffalo, via email
A: Yes. Lloyd Taco Factory sells its housemade corn tortillas, and masa corn dough, at both its Hertel and Williamsville locations. Casa Azul, in Allentown, also sells its housemade corn tortillas.
More reading from Michael Chelus:
Mr. Galarneau told us about the "casual genius" of his number one restaurant in WNY - The Grange Community Kitchen [Four Bites]
Andrew also told us about the delicious dishes to be had at Oralia in downtown Buffalo [Four Bites]
Janelle told us the story of Kate Knowles, owner of Manchester Place Baking Co. [Buffalo Spree]
Lime House is opening a second location in Amherst [Buffalo News]
Andrew gave more details of the opening of International House featuring Le Bar Flamant Rose in the former Downtown Bazaar [Buffalo Rising]
Cooking of Claire of Sobremesa is doing a fundraiser dinner for The Buffalo-Niagara LGBTQ History Projecton Friday, January 17th. Click here to buy tickets and get more details [Sobremesa]
Brian told us that we can celebrate New Year's Eve at local breweries like Big Ditch, Buffalo RiverWorks and more [Buffalo News]
Francesca wrote about the local craft beer industry and told us how it’s survival of the fittest [Buffalo News]
Daniel wrote about Milton’s inside the Statler Buffalo [Buffalo Rising]
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