Breadworks in Boulder is two businesses. That’s the only way to look at it. Well, the easiest way at least.
One business is the phenomenal bakery. Every morning, fresh dough is raised in the oven in a large industrial baker’s kitchen. The loaves — batard, olive and sage, focaccia, ciabatta — are arranged on a glass-covered shelf near the entryway. To the right are piles of croissants, popovers, muffins and more. In a cooled box sit little cakes, fruit pies and tarts. It all looks great, and it all is great.
The other 270 degrees in view are a cafeteria (the bakery is hidden behind walls though it takes up well more than half the square footage in the space). Orders for breakfast and lunch are taken in an assembly line — sandwiches and salads first, then daily hot plates, then bread and sweets. Turn around for the drinks and boxed sides of pasta salad and fruit. Then you pay, wait for your name to be called and pick up your food on a trusty brown plastic tray. It’s a modest and efficient operation, which is a pretty good way to describe the food, too.
So there you have it: bakery and cafeteria. The division between businesses is evident on a late Saturday morning — some folks come in for bread, others come in to eat lunch. Another earlier morning, folks come in for coffee and pastries, others come in for the hot breakfast of cinnamon buns and frittata, sitting under stainless steel heat lamps, seemingly miles away like the mirage of a desert pool… if you weren’t that excited about finding an oasis.
That is to say that Breadworks’ meal offerings are OK. The best thing I ate (and we’ll hold off on the discussion of bread in order to get this out of the way), was a chicken tarragon salad sandwich. Thick, cool chunks of chicken breast were coated in sweet mayonnaise, and the floral and spiciness of the tarragon was excellent. Resting on a multi-grain rye that was moist and thick-cut, and thrown in with tomato and crisp lettuce, it was a good sandwich. It was a sandwich you devour when famished, or brownbag to work occasionally, but that was so milquetoast it would be the pre-revelation, black and white meal in a newflangled panini press commercial. Maybe that’s just the nature of chicken salad, though.
But then again the ordinariness continued in the turkey cherry compote sandwich, a cobb salad and Mexican cuisine-inspired heap of beans, cheese and vegetables. It wasn’t quite the damned two-letter term I was thinking of after each bite of these dishes — because the food was fresher, better prepared and the staff was friendlier— but I will say there appears to be no coincidence two large medical facilities flank the location.
Now the fun part, though: The bread. The ciabatta loaf was dense and moist, with a thick crust. I like a little more burn on the bottom of mine, but it makes an excellent soup dipper and a solid sandwich roll. The olive and sage loaf was a real winner. Hearty crust, a juicy, salty and rich variety of olives, and a beautiful yeasty netting within the crust, the olive loaf is a perfect companion to a spicy or lighter olive oil. The saltiness in the olives brings out all the flavor you’ll need in a good olive oil, and I’ve picked many a loaf for a quick appetizer and ended up eating the whole thing.
The almond croissant is excellent. It is topped with sliced almonds and powdered, lightly rolled and flaky, and packed with a lemon-almond filling that feels like dessert.
The best way to look at it might be to say that Breadworks is a jack of all trades, and a master of one. No matter what business they are the day you find them — catering, cafeteria or at the farmers’ market — you can at least count on good bread. And that’s no small deal.
