Calibella Bakery sells Colombian Pastry on Wyckoff Avenue. — Photos by Scarlett Lindeman
Every morning just past 7am, when the sky starts to match the color of the fat snowflakes drifting to the sidewalk, there is a line pushing out the door of Calibella Bakery. If luck bends your way, you will be able to squeeze inside the steamy room and slam the door on the winter chill. Hector Borja, the owner, dark hair streaked with grey and pulled into a ponytail, will take your order for coffee. How many sugars? How much milk? How hot would you like it?
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Mr. Borja has lived in the United States for the past 25 years, seven of the last he has owned Calibella, a panadería colombiana that serves coffee and sweets. He has not felt the need to learn much English because of the “latinos, latinos, latinos” that anchor the Bushwick community and the neighborhood in which he lives, Corona, Queens.
The selection is ample, roughly divided by cookies and pastries on one side and breads, the star carbohydrate of Colombian cuisine, on the other. Workers in tight, bright t-shirts help you choose pan de bono, a bagel-shaped cheese bread made with yuca starch and corn flour, or pan cacho, a Colombian-style croissant. “The secret of good bread is in the recipe,” says Mr. Borja. “You have to maintain the exact formula.” Stacks of cream-filled milojas, a Latin American mille-feuille, take a light hand and the proper proportions of fat and flour to produce. He admits, “I may own a bakery but I am no baker.”
To run the front and bake in the back, Mr. Borja employs eight people, six full-time. Juices, empanadas and other savories are also served but mostly, patrons come in for the soothing sensation of coffee-soaked pastry. For the next couple of days, there is still a special holiday bread in residence — pan de pascua, similar to Italian panettone, studded with wine-soaked figs and cherries. The rich bread is dense and pleasantly chewy, with a heft that will need a couple of cups of Colombian to plow through.
Mopar January 9th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
This lace is pretty good. I like the sugar donuts and the plain sweet bread, which is kind of like a hot cross bun only I think with anise flavoring. Coffee is good.
Joseph January 11th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
I go for the guava & cream cheese pastry. Although this is really a Dominican? specialty, they do a nice job with it – sticky, sweet and great with coffee.
Jeremy Sapienza January 11th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
guava and cheese is pretty basic pan-caribbean, so I’d expect to see it in a colombian place too