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Fresh Start Bakery & Catering: Media Coverage
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RIVERBEND BAKERY:
FRESH START
BAKERY & CATERING
by Catherine Ripley, Editor
The Riverbend Ragg-Times
March 14, 2007
"Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods."(James Beard 1903-1985). Riverbend is blessed with two bakeries and an abundance of fresh bread.
Fresh Start, a bakery, restaurant, and catering establishment owned by Dave Dorn, celebrated its one year anniversary in December 2006 under its new name and new location. Dave is a journeyman baker by trade and worked at Bon Ton, Italian Bakery, Safeway, and Sobeys before venturing into his own business. He saw firsthand how large quantity bread was made with its many stabilizers and preservatives and vowed to produce something simpler and far better.
Dave is absolutely passionate about his bread and bakery and is committed to quality and freshness. He employs six bakers and has forty staff members who work both part time and full time. I found it quite intriguing that Dave uses a fresh yeast and a natural starter. This means that his breads have no fat, sugar, milk, or eggs in them with the exception of sweet or egg breads. His bakery uses 100% organic flours and time-tested recipes. He has recently purchased recipes from Vienna Bakery.
Everyday Fresh Start produces twenty to thirty different types of bread. Every loaf is fresh daily and everything from scratch. The leftovers are donated to charity. His personal favourites are the new flaxseed bread and his Montreal style bagels. Dave admits that the configuration of Fresh Start does not showcase the bakery. As a locally owned business, Dave has the flexibility to do custom orders and is continually evolving this bakery and cafe to do custom orders and meet local needs.
www.freshstartbakery.com, 484 Riverbend Square, 433-9623
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VUE WEEKLY, DISH, October 12, 2006
RIVERBEND GETS FRESH START
by CHRISTOPHER THRALL / dish@vueweekly.com
‘Try one. They’re incredible,” she insisted. I nodded: why not? Toasted sesame with butter, please.
The new owner of Bohemia Cyber Café went back to her paint swatches, and I returned to my writing pad. She was deciding whether to offer Fresh Start Bakery Café bagels at her Jasper Avenue coffee bar, so she picked up a dozen to bring in. A single taste was awe-inspiring. If this brand new place in Riverbend baked bagels like these and claimed to offer light dinners, it was time to check it out.
I grew up when Riverbend was the über-swank neighbourhood of the city, where every kid had a car and the keys to their parents’ extensive liquor cabinets. It was with some trepidation that I navigated into the extensive strip mall at Terwillegar and Rabbit Hill Road.
Fresh Start had chosen an eye-catching exterior to attract its higher-income clientele. Engaging café and bakery illustrations festooned the walls facing the dull, gray parking lot and I appreciated the contrast. The interior extended the feeling of a cosy space reclaimed from the dull strip mall outside. Wooden slatted blinds allowed the fall twilight to filter in. Dark woods lined the floors, while lighter tones formed the rest.
The enormous square space was bisected diagonally by a busy counter that snaked through the room. On one side was the seething industriousness of a full-tilt bakery and kitchen. On the other were hordes of hungry Riverbendites.
The counter started with pastries, breads and other baked goods, and passed through the coffee station, order desk, prep area and salad/sandwich display. I lingered happily by the fresh cinnamon buns (and tried two samples) before I rejoined my family in front of the menu board.
SANDWICHES AND WRAPS
were $6.99, with rice bowls a few dollars more. Our attention focused on the grill selection. My wife told me to get her the chicken breast on a bun ($11.99) with Greek salad and vegetables while I waffled between the buffalo burger and bison ribeye. I’m only human, so I had my steak ($14.99) with Caesar salad and vegetables.
I chose the Activo Malbec ($6.99) from a plentiful board of booze, which included unexpected imports and local favourites from Alley Kat. My wife opted for a more prosaic coffee ($1.89). I paid and joined my family at the little round table they had claimed.
Despite the fact that only one in four of their customers stayed for table service, Fresh Start was busy. Right after work on a Thursday, most people were popping by to bring home part of dinner while others stayed for one. A family group had pushed together three two-seaters, and most of the others were well-dressed seniors couples. We waited impatiently for our drinks.
Surprise! They came with little baskets of freshly-sliced bread and a pat of butter. I guess I didn’t expect restaurant-style features in a bakery café, but the soft bread was also a killer cross-promotion for their take-home loaves. My bride was well content with her darkly roasted organic blend, but I wasn’t as thrilled with my wine. The boisterous berry nose was present, but the wine itself was more tannic than I had hoped. I would say it was more merlot than malbec, if I said those kinds of things.
Given the busy kitchen, our wait for the entrées was easily understandable. We were definitely thrilled to see them arrive: while neither was plated with any particular aesthetic, sometimes it’s enough to simply savour the sight of fresh, well-prepared ingredients gleaming with promise. I wasn’t disappointed.
My medium rare steak looked more well done because of the darker meat, but the first juicy bite was convincing. If it’s prepared properly, I adore bison for its intensity: it’s like beef, but more so. My steamed vegetables were the standard medley on a larger scale: the full-sized cauliflower and broccoli stalks were a little disorienting. However, the less said about the Caesar salad, the better.
“I’ve never noticed the bun in a chicken sandwich,” my wife commented as she chewed thoughtfully. She had assembled the two halves: one was spread with pesto mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato, while the other boasted a full breast of tender grilled chicken. The result was wonderful, and the fresh ciabatta bun was a definite highlight. Her Greek salad pleased the eye with huge chunks of crisp, bright vegetables and plenty of olives, but the dressing was an unassuming vinaigrette.
As my wife readied our daughter to leave, I ambled over to the dessert counter. I decided to surprise her with a brownie ($2.99), and pointed at a saucer-sized white chocolate tart ($4.99) with raspberries erupting from its centre. I also picked up a coffee for the road. I loved to see the place so busy. For a place far more restaurant than bakery café, with superb service and an already rabid following, I know it’s going to stick around. On our way home, we already began to discuss the treats.
After the youngest Thrall was asleep, we divided the desserts as fairly as we could and settled into CSI. I ended up missing the first 15 minutes as my taste buds went into paroxysms of delight. The brownie was an inch thick, with layers of rich chocolate icing, crushed walnuts and moist, rich cake blending perfectly with every bite. Within its firm yet crumbly crust, the tart’s white chocolate layer wasn’t hard as we expected, but rather soft and yielding like the finest fudge. The sweetly acrid raspberries added contrast, and the whole was so sinfully luscious that both of us were devastated when the tart was finished.
“Damn, it’s a good thing I don’t live closer to this bakery,” my pregnant wife muttered.
Pardon me while I disagree: it’s me who’s going to be sent out to answer the craving when it strikes. I guess I’ll just have to pick up a little something for myself at the same time. V
Tue - Thu to 8 pm, Fri - Sat to 9 pm,
Sun to 3 pm, Closed Mondays
Fresh Start Bakery Café
484 Riverbend Square
433.9623
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Edmonton Journal, Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Bakery rises to the occasion
with wider meal service
But proprietor ensures no compromise on bread quality
by JUDY SCHULTZ
 Fresh Start: The European concept of a bakery cafe is catching on in Edmonton. It's happening in the Handy Bakery, the Bagel Bin Bistro and Bakery, the southside Italian Centre Shop, the new Wild Earth, French Meadows, and the Fresh Start. It's a natural marriage, a cake-and-coffee kind of thing.
At Fresh Start, the bakery/cafe at 484 Riverbend Square, owner Dave Dornn is taking it further, doing brunch, lunch and dinner plus catering, while still maintaining the integrity of his bakery.
"With all this, we're still a traditional bakery," says Dornn, whose breads contain zero fats and zero sugars. "We have no stabilizers, preservatives, bleaching agents or dairy in our regular breads."
And that's a good thing.
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Breadtime Stories
FOUR KEY INGREDIENTS
MAKE THE DIFFERENCE
Dave Dornn rolls bagels
'Montreal-style' at his cafe Fresh Start Bakery & Catering
by JUDY SCHULTZ
Journal Bistro Writer
The Bakery: Fresh Start Bakery & Catering, 484 Riverbend Square
The Baker: Dave Dornn, owner
What brings you into the highly competitive business of running an independent bakery / cafe?
I've spent 20 years in various aspects of this business. I've been a bakery specialist, setting up bakeries and coffee bars for Sobey's and Safeway. I've also worked in some of the best independent bakeries in the city. It was time to do this.
When I first visited this address, it was a cafe.
Why did yo switch the emphasis to bread?
The trend in the industry now, especially in supermarkets and in many restaurants, is to bring in par-baked dough. The breads are baked until the yeast has finished its work, then blast frozen within 15 to 18 minutes.
I don't think it's good bread. I don't like the health issues associated with it, or the ingredients that are necessary to compensate for a longer shelf life and the freeze-thaw cycle. I knew I could do better. Here we make everything fresh, every day, and I don't freeze anything.
Describe the perfect dough.
I prefer a natural product with as few ingredients as possible. Our basic breads have four ingredients only - flour, water, yeast and salt. Except for the brioche and the egg bread, they don't contain sugar or fat. We use a starter with all our breads, just flour and water that's been allowed to sit for 24 hours. A friend from Vancouver came out and helped me develop the starter.
Montreal-style bagels are made by hand and boiled for three minutes
Do you have a specialty?
We do a Montreal-style bagel. It's a smaller bagel than the par-baked bagels we see here. Although we don't have the traditional wood-fired oven, we use a rotating brick floor oven which does a very good job on the crust. I love the chewiness of the crust, and there's no added fat in the bagel. It's very satisfying.
Do you make them by hand, or pop them out by the machine?
Every bagel is hand-formed, and before they go into the oven, we drop them into a long (three-minute) boiling water bath with honey added to the water. I'm associated with the baker's guild, and that's where the recipe originated.
Are bagels your best seller?
We sell more of our basic breads; pecan raisin, multi-grain and stone-ground whole wheat loaves.
What about the low-carb trend?
Low-carb is a fad. Everything in moderation is so much better. One slice of our multi-grain bread is packed with seven to nine different seeds - flax, sunflower, rolled oats, sesame seeds, cracked wheat. One slice of a bread like that contains a lot of nutrients. Our customers say it's a great toasting bread.
When fats are part of a recipe, what do you use?
We don't use shortening in our pastries. Just butter. My wife and I are both runners, so I make a health muffin with applesauce replacing fat, dates replacing sugar.
What about the cafe part of this business? Does it take the emphasis off the baking side?
No, it enhances the bakery side. We have a red seal chef, Dimetri Peters, who makes our in-house fresh soups, sandwiches, wraps and five to seven varieties of entrees daily. They're available to eat in or take out.
There are four of us in the bakery who are all certified bakers. We shut the ovens down at night, but the head baker starts at 2 a.m. The first loaves are hand-formed and ready for the oven about 4 a.m. and by 6 a.m. we have freshly baked loaves coming out of the oven.
What's the most important ingredient for an in dependent baker?
Passion for the job and the product.
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