Jak’s Bakery brings Bulgarian bread and pastries to Bloomfield
Zhelyazko “Jak” Latinov was already deep into his work day at 9 a. m. on Nov. 28, tossing and stretching shimmering blobs of dough into gurgling, translucent sheets covering the oiled stainless-steel table at his new Bloomfield bakery.
“It’s a very simple recipe: water, flour, just a pinch of salt. That’s it. It can’t be more basic than this. You rely on time and the strength of the gluten in the flour to make it what it is,” he says.
As elementary as it sounds, there’s a lot of technique behind the process. His delicately strong phyllo dough is the base for Latinov’s triumphant banitsa, which he stuffs with mixes such as spinach and feta, butternut squash and cinnamon sugar or apples and walnuts.
It’s the second full day of operation at Jak’s Bakery. Curious residents of the neighborhood and longtime fans from Latinov’s fouryear run at area farmers markets pepper in to see what the Bulgarian immigrant is offering.
Working since midnight, he’s prepared a litany of sweet and savory breads and pastries, following in the footsteps of generations of bakers at neighborhood shops around the world.
“We’re not so special. We’re just a regular bakery. I was the 25th baker in my small town in Bulgaria when I opened my place back there,” Latinov says.
However, in a city like Pittsburgh where corner bakeries representing a geography of culinary traditions are, at best, faint memories for most people, this new, affordable bakeshop Latinov runs with his wife, Molly Freedman Latinova, is noteworthy.
“Back when we first moved here, he’d bake at the Bulgarian Club,” she says. “We found out there used to be 35 Bulgarian bakeries in Pittsburgh. And that’s just Bulgarian. There were Greek, Italian, everything. You had access to freshly baked goods everywhere.”
The couple aims to bring back the tradition of popping in to purchase a few bites of accessible and affordable scratch-made products. At Jak’s, just about everything
costs $4 or $5.
“We like the idea of having a space where people come regularly to pick a few things up. It’s fast food, but it’s made from scratch every day,” Freedman Latinova says.
The Bulgarian baked goods Latinov prepares sit in a cross-cultural pocket incorporating the unyeasted phyllo dough you’ll find in Greece and Turkey and the yeastrisen, sugar-sweetened breads of Central Europe. Even if the items’ names at Jak’s differ from those in other countries, what’s offered is likely familiar to many eaters.
The feathery crisp banitsa that Latinov so skillfully prepares comes from the same culinary family tree as Turkish börek. His prosciutto and cheese rolls might have a different stuffing, yet they would still be instantly recognizable to lovers of West Virginia pepperoni rolls derived from Italian traditions.
Deeper on the savory side, Jak’s pickle pizza has a soft pastry-like base (similar to what you’d find at Jioio’s in Westmoreland County, but without the Ritz cracker sweetness), roasted red pepper and eggplant spread, briny pickle slices and nutty cheddar cheese. The combination is terribly satisfying, excellent at room temperature and gains an amplified umami and tender-crisp texture when gently heated. Is it pizza? Maybe. Delicious? Yes.
As for the sweets, you’ll find similar variations of the soft-as-a-pillow vanilla creme stuffed buns at Austrian bakeries. The same buns filled with rose hip jam, a floral but not sticky-sweet delight, tie the treat more deeply to Bulgaria. Get one of those in the morning and take it to neighboring Trace Brewing to pair it with a cup of coffee.
Jak’s Bakery’s country loaf is just as it sounds — a good, solid, everyday loaf of bread you should eat within a day of purchase.
Latinov grew up in a city of 10,000 people located 15 minutes from the Greek and Turkish borders. He spent four years in technical high school learning the craft, art and trade of running a bakery, and then launched one after a year of compulsory service in the Bulgarian army.
He and Freedman Latinova met while she worked for the Peace Corps in Bulgaria. The two kindled an international romance while she lived in Pittsburgh for graduate school in the late 2000s. She moved back to Bulgaria, where the couple had two children. They returned to Pittsburgh in 2014, drawn here by the city’s manageable size, its historic Bulgarian community and access to good schools and specialized health care for their older daughter, who has Down syndrome.
Latinov worked as a baker at the University of Pittsburgh in his first few years here.
“I didn’t speak any English, so I started working there to take English as a second language classes,” he says. “Then I decided to do something with my financial degree that I earned in Bulgaria. So I worked in insurance. I didn’t really need a financial degree for that. But it did help me with my sales skills.”
That experience helped when the couple decided to sell Bulgarian baked goods at pop-ups and farmers market stands in 2019. They quickly built a following. In 2021, they purchased the Bloomfield building that now houses the bakery. It took a lengthy process of design, permitting and construction to rehabilitate the ground floor space that once housed a barber shop.
Latinov says he might add more items such as eclairs, coffee cakes and sandwiches down the road, but any additions depend on whether he can find more staff.
“Right now, it’s the maximum capacity for what I can do here baking by myself,” he says.
They’ll keep appearing at some of Pittsburgh’s winter markets, including the Saturday East Liberty indoor market, the University of
Pittsburgh Thursday winter market and monthly on Saturdays in Sewickley. Staffing will determine where they will schedule once the warm-season markets return next spring.
Latinov starts his work at midnight most days, since it’s a 6-hour process from putting flour in the mixer to getting the first products out of the oven in time for Jak’s to open at 6 a.m., except on Mondays when it’s closed. And Freedman Latinova is there to help him open the shop before leaving and returning later in the morning once the kids start school.
“I need sleep, of course, but even when I was younger, I didn’t sleep much at night,” Latinov says. “I love working all night. You still get to enjoy the day when you’re done. And then you get to do it all over again to make your customers happy.”