Banh & Butter Bakery Cafe Opens on East Colfax Avenue
“It was like a whole 5-calendar year strategy,” suggests Nguyen. “I left the family members small business, labored at Total Food items to master the corporate side, went to the Escoffier Faculty of Culinary Arts and worked as a pasty instructor. All this gave me time to do the job on the enterprise system.”
The 1st time Nguyen really embraced French pastry art was in 2010, when she left Denver for France in order to go to college. She fell in appreciate with the fragile levels of pastry, flaky croissants and iconic baguettes. She understood then that of all the foodstuff to make, it was French pastry that held her heart.
She also understood she required to carry individuals techniques back property. While she was overseas, her moms and dads, who used to own New Saigon Vietnamese restaurant, started to establish out New Saigon Bakery with the notion that their daughter would choose in excess of when she returned residence and have her aspiration bakery. But it failed to switch out that way.
“My mom allow me make a menu and take treatment of my French pastry and the cake facet, and she took treatment of the banh mi,” states Nguyen of New Saigon Bakery. “But for the reason that of the popularity the banh mi experienced, there was nothing we designed that I could really deliver my French expertise to.”
She did make a splash with her picture-best crepe cakes, their sensitive layers towering up to generate sweet rainbows and chocolate masterpieces. But even though Nguyen enjoys crepe cakes, it grew to become the only thing she was accomplishing at New Saigon. Everybody required one, and due to the fact she was by itself on the bakery side, there wasn’t any time left for these flaky, buttery pastries and laminated doughs she longed to make.
“New Saigon was a family members eyesight, not my eyesight, and my parents realized I had ideas and I was on the lookout for my very own area,” notes Nguyen, who located it really hard to leave the company her mother and father built for her but understood she essential her very own undertaking. “I couldn’t place in my French abilities, since it is much more about Vietnamese baking.”
With Banh & Butter, she required to use the French methods she learned though introducing a bit of her possess tradition into the blend. Which is why visitors can get a slice of her signature crepe cake as effectively as an ube-mochi cupcake and a excellent almond croissant together with a matcha-infused cruffin, which is a cross involving a muffin and a croissant. The spot also serves banh mi along with typical Parisian-model ham and butter sandwiches. Nguyen utilizes the exact bread recipe as New Saigon does, but with a slight hydration tweak so that the baguettes arrive out extra like the ones in France as a substitute of the substantial, flaky, hoagie-like rolls at her parents’s location. Both equally are delightful, but distinctive to every single location.
“I bear in mind strolling in Lyon [France], and just about every bakery experienced a baguette sandwich that you get on the go and eat,” recollects Nguyen. “That’s why I wished that sandwich working experience in this article.”
Nguyen uncovered her aspiration bakery in the previous Third Society space on East Colfax upcoming to Baba & Pop’s Pierogi. The place has slowly been transforming into an arts district, some thing that each enticed her and assisted her make your mind up what variety of vibe she needed. The strategy, she claims, is to develop a group all-around the cafe and assist artists like herself. Following all, she provides, a pastry chef is an artist, as well.
Inside of, amid the conditions laden with artfully crafted pastries in hues of purple, pink, brown, environmentally friendly and tan, artwork by local creators lines the walls. In one corner, shelves of stunning vegetation curated by Dwelling Decor Shop consider up residence, along with pots and even much more photos and paintings. All of it is readily available for order, and this facet is anything Nguyen wishes to keep on to develop and encourage in her bakery.
Not only does Nguyen run her possess bakery now, but her sister, An Nguyen, owns Savory Vietnam (2200 West Alameda Avenue), Westword’s 2022 Very best of Denver decide on for Finest Vietnamese Restaurant. New Saigon Bakery is even now likely robust, much too, with her moms and dads running the demonstrate and churning out people common banh mi sandwiches and other Vietnamese goodies. As for her mom and dad, Nguyen states they appreciate her new bakery and cafe and are really proud of what she has constructed — and centered on the traces on a recent Saturday, the neighborhood is pleased she’s there, way too.
Banh & Butter is situated at 9935 East Colfax Avenue and is open up from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday by means of Thursday and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday. For far more details, check out banhandbutter.com.