Bread business rises to the occasion
Chiara Adorno is back in the bread-making biz.
Chiara — pronounced like chianti — gained a local following during her previous five years as an artisan baker with her Tender Fork Market business, selling at places like the Vallejo Farmers’ Market, Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco, Monterey Market in Berkeley, and the Oxbow in Napa.
In fact, she put so much effort and time into making sourdoughs, quality loaves of bread that she ended up in the emergency room with an auto-immune affliction. She took a break to take care of herself, and now she’s back with new loaves and a renewed excitement for her art.
“I love making my breads,” she said. I miss making them, the breads will be as people remember them… I miss it a lot!”
Her new business, Silver Gate Bread & Mill, is named for the Carquinez Strait, which was once referred to as the “Silver Gate,” a nod to its sister “Golden” port in San Francisco.
This time around she is working on a smaller scale and she’s offering something that no one else here is — a bread subscription service.
For a monthly rate, she will create weekly either Vallejo sourdough or “bakers choice,” which could be any from dozens of her unique recipes, such as jack cheese and shallot bomb; asiago, roasted garlic with cracked black pepper, chocolate sourdough, morning energy bread, or sesame semolina country loaf. She will also throw in goodies like scones or her signature granola. Baked goods can either be picked up weekly or delivered to your door.
Her operation is a bit smaller this time, but just big enough to keep her engaged and stimulated, she said.
Previously she was a tenant in the Dylan Bread kitchen, renting out their bread ovens. Now she has purchased her own bread-making oven from Belgium, known as a Rofco Oven. It’s a brick oven that releases the magical steam needed to make loaves with an amazing crust and crumb.
“It’s a monster,” she quips.
Adorno has been an attorney and gone to art school, but bread is where she has found her home. She was trained at the prestigious San Francisco Baking Institute, where she said she learned the science of bread baking. But she has learned to go by her own feel and intuition with each loaf.
“In the end, it’s all about taste,” she said. She found herself surrounded by people who were technically skilled but seemingly focused a lot on “hydration percentages” and the intricacies of “crumb” and getting those pockets or bubbles in the structure.
“OK.. I can do that, but how does it taste? There’s not a lot of bread there. Mine are more dense. I like it.”
Adorno initially came here from the Central Coast, where she had a business creating picnic baskets. She wanted to live in the Bay Area but didn’t think she could afford it.
She hit Vallejo during its small “boom time,” when many people moved here for affordable housing after the city went bankrupt. Now she says she sees even more “newbies,” many who have children and home to plant real roots here.
As many of us know, we not only live in a “food desert” in places, but there is a real bread deficit in town for people who like authentic baguettes, California Sourdough artisan loaves, and the like. Acme bread rears its head here sparingly, though for Adorno, if you want a boutique, organic, real artisan experience, they are basically a factory for bread at this point.
“I did research and they make 65,000 loaves a week,” she said. Adorno is hoping to harness customers who appreciate handmade, unique breads made with locally sourced ingredients and the care of a master baker who loves her work. She also thinks that an honest loaf of bread can be restorative.
“The more we get people getting used to eating better foods, the better they will understand better food,” she said.
In addition to bread, she is a pastry chef and sells many things from her website, silvergatebread. com. She currently has a “Happy Easter” bespoke box, with six large cinnamon rolls, chocolate almond biscotti, and sultana cardamom scones.
Adorno initially came here from the Central Coast, where she had a business creating picnic baskets. She wanted to live in the Bay Area but didn’t think she could afford it.
She also sells medium and large sweet rolls (fig and sesame with orange crème icing, toasted walnut cherry with mocha crème icing, to name a few), brownie brittle crisps, cranberry pecan and chocolate & ginger bits scones, pecan banana bread, and more. She has gluten-free granola and frozen takeand-bake classic cinnamon rolls as well.
She regularly donates her bakes to organizations that serve community members with food insecurity, such as Lincoln Elementary School.
Once her new subscription business is operational in a month, Adorno is happy to allow people to sample her product who might be interested. She is currently accepting new subscribers and there is a limited capacity. The subscriptions are a month’s worth (one loaf weekly) of Vallejo Sourdough ($40) or the Baker’s Choice ($50).
To connect with her, email her at chiara.silvergatebread@gmail.com and she will reach out. You can also sign up for her newsletter on her website, silvergatebread.com, and that will connect customers to her as well.