Millo Millo Bake Shop is a fine new bakery in Calgary’s Killarney neighbourhood
It’s great to see an upscale bakery just open in my neighbourhood. Millo Millo Bake Shop is an elegant space on Killarney’s busy 37 Street SW, a 2-kilometre drive from my house.
It offers a wide range of baked goods, from croissants and Earl Grey scones to loaves of sourdough bread, bagel sandwiches (starting at $12) and high black forest cakes.
Mostly sourdough loaves
I start modestly with a lovely, chewy pretzel bagel ($3.75) and a local Chronicle-roasted coffee. After all, it’s a short drive for repeat visits.
A nice, chewy pretzel bagel
This little pocket of 37 Street is becoming a bit of food scene, with Freo Breakfast & Lunch next door and Balkan-based Erina Bakery around the corner.
Millo Millo Bake Shop 3003 37 Street SW, Calgary Wednesday to Saturday 8 am-4 pm, Sunday 9 am-4 pm. Closed Monday and Tuesday 587-353-0777
I’ve driven past Erina Bakery countless times without noticing its presence, next to a bottle depot on busy 37 Street in southwest Calgary. I finally pushed open its colourful doors and discovered a world of Balkan baking I didn’t know existed.
How about you? Have you heard of pitalka, Nordic rye or Albanian breads? Didn’t think so. Or burek, a cigar-shaped phyllo pastry filled with your choice of potato, cheese, meat or spinach. It makes a delightful appetizer, with or without a dip.
Burek: a stuffed phyllo pastry
The prices are low, such as $2 for a chewy little pitalka loaf. Slather on a red pepper spread called avjar and you might be transported to Kosovo.
This pitalka loaf would make a huge sandwich
The quality and distinctness of Erina’s baked goods is more than matched by the charming couple, Milahim and Melihate, who opened the bakery some four years ago. Meeting lovely owners like these is the reason I do this blog.
The full Balkan bakery experience
Okay, on with the quiz. Kifle? Gjervrek? Like me, you’ll have to visit to find out.
Erina Bakery Unit 28, 2835 37 Street SW, Calgary Daily 9 am-7 pm, except 5 pm closing Sundays 403-686-2900
A butter croissant and a sweet scone at fabulous Calgary pastry baker Butter Block
I came for a simple butter croissant. I left with so much more.
Butter Block & Co. makes arguably Calgary’s finest butter croissant, albeit with stiff competition from the likes of Manuel Latruwe, Black Sheep and Yann Haute Patisserie. Butter Block certainly delivered, for me, on all that a winning croissant promises: requisite multiple layers of butter-dripping, crispy yet pillowy pastry.
Yet I couldn’t stop at a single croissant, given the creative diversity that beckoned from Butter Block Café’s display case. I tacked on to my plate a lovely, crumbly sweet scone but could only wistfully gaze at the pain au chocolate, an unusual sesame croissant and the pastel de natas (Portuguese custard tarts), which I once swooned over in Lisbon. Future visits are certain.
The display case kept being replenished with fresh, innovative pastries
What knocked Butter Block out of the park for me was a holy grail quest finally answered—an exceptional bakery paired with an excellent coffee shop. Sometimes you get one but rarely both.
Yet in this cozy midtown Calgary café, everyone else was sipping on lovingly produced pour-over coffees. So of course, I added this to my tab and was rewarded with a smooth, earthy brew. It turns out, Butter Block has worked with David Kim in a Calgary roastery called Paradigm Spark.
The pour-over coffee bar. Soon to disappear?
Is all this too good to be true? Perhaps. Paradigm Spark is leaving the location December 31 in search of its own space, with Butter Block stepping in to fill the coffee void. We’ll see how it goes. But before I left, I made sure to snag a bag of Melody beans roasted less than a week ago.
I snagged some fresh-roasted beans while I could
Butter Block was established in 2017 by Karen Kong, a graduate of SAIT’s Baking and Pastry Arts program. The bakery is across the hall from the café, in the historic Devenish building, and it’s where you can pick up frozen croissants, to be baked at home. That’s because the best croissant is one just pulled from the oven.
The sour cherry hand pie at Calgary’s Pie Hole is a devastating combination of buttery pastry and tangy berries
Contemplating some pie? You’re no doubt fixated on the contents. Will it be apple or key lime? Chicken or beef?
Sure, the crust is important. But critical?
Well, it certainly is when you bite into the splendid offerings at Calgary’s charming new Pie Hole. Virtually everything on the short menu is cocooned inside the daily, made-from-scratch pastry. There’s fruit pies, meat pies, quiches and perfect, snack-sized hand pies of sweet and savoury varieties.
Take your time getting to the inside of these delicacies, because the pastry is worth savouring like a fine wine. There’s a lot to consider here: the slight crunch, the flakiness, the butter. Ah, the butter. Pie Hole goes through some 30 pounds a day of this elixir, and it makes all the difference in the richness of the pies.
Golden brown pastry shells awaiting their contents. Though I think you could eat these beauties on their own.
This is not to say the innards don’t matter. The chicken pot pie ($8), for instance, contains tender chunks of chicken, gravy and all the requisite vegetables. A winter quiche might feature tomato, fresh herbs and chevre.
And then there’s the sour cherry hand pie ($5), a devastating combination of tart Saskatchewan berries and that amazing pastry. You can take it, or anything else, home with you. But I’ll bet it’s gone by the time you reach the car, crumbs trailing you across the parking lot.
Pie Hole partner Torin Shuster after a 12-hour shift of pie making. Now that’s dedication
The Pie Hole
8 Spruce Centre SW, Calgary
Wednesday to Sunday 9 am-6 pm. Closed Monday and Tuesday
403-452-3960
The brioche bread makes this scintillating croque monsieur at Calgary’s Manuel Latruwe bakery
The conventional image of a croque monsieur is a béchamel-soaked ham sandwich, baked till the blanketing cheese (say a Gruyere) bubbles over.
But it took a trip to Calgary Belgian baker Manuel Latruwe for me to realize the essence of this caloric confection is the bread. Which in this case is a wonderfully soft, house-made brioche, offsetting the sandwich’s crunch (croque) and adding a layer of richness to this French standard. Continue reading →
Marathon Mouth 