Bakers & Baristas
Vigilante Cold Brew Coffee
Cinnamon Roll
Pumpkin Brown Sugar Muffin
Chocolate Croissant
Blueberry and Pistachio Financiers
Stated to be a Viennese Bakery, bold proclamations on the wall about the Pastries of Vienna being “unparalleled the world over” likely to draw the ire of Francophiles in addition to many other European nations, Bakers & Baristas originally opened in early 2015 and quickly gained a following from folks working in and around Chinatown, the popularity continuing today with a steady stream of traffic filtering in and out from 7am on weekdays and eight o’clock on weekends.
Celebrated across Washington D.C. for their Butterkuchen, a dish that is apparently only put out for sale “around 10am” each day according to the woman unfortunately informing diners of this fact nearly three hours earlier on Halloween morning, it was with a resigned sigh that the decision was made to not waste time on the meter and stay for Breakfast regardless, a total of five items purchased along with Coffee making the best of a bad situation at the corner of E and 7th Street Northwest.
Not far from recently renamed Capital One Arena, the former Verizon Center, International Spy Museum and National Portrait Gallery also providing plenty of foot traffic for the long and narrow Bakery which later becomes a Sandwich Shop, it was with plates purchased and collected from a counter staffed by three women that seating was found at the Restaurant’s far end, a sip of the Cold Brew from locally owned Vigilante Coffee proving rich with notes of Berries and not a hint of bitterness.
Arriving just moments after the Bakery’s opening and thus benefitting from several of the Pastries still being warm to touch it was with this in mind that tasting began with the bites of a yeasty Cinnamon Roll featuring a soft and fluffy center juxtaposing sturdy walls impenetrable to plastic utensils, the rip and tear method a bit messy but in no way affecting flavors that come across sweet and buttery while the also-warm Pain Au Chocolate lacked slightly in terms of rise but not at all in terms of taste with the core full of still-molten Dark Chocolate.
Humorously offering a very “American” collection of Muffins and decidedly French Financiers, both odd choices for a place so proud to tout its heritage, it can nonetheless be said that all three items were well made and enjoyable enough to make one temporarily forget about the Viennese Cake that they’d originally come to taste, the Pumpkin Brown Sugar Quickbread clearly in tune with the season and nicely spiced while the Almond Flour base of each Pearl Sugar topped Cake was dense and moist with the Pistachio particularly memorable thanks to the crushed nuts adding a slight saltiness to the Dough.
https://www.bakersandbaristas.com/
