Owner-namesake Ayelet Nuchi is opening Babka by Ayelet at Town & Country Village at 855 El Camino Real. On Monday, she was flitting around the bakery's open kitchen, busily rolling, cutting and braiding dough to make sweet and savory babka. The Jewish pastry is ubiquitous in her native Tel Aviv — like cupcakes in the United States, she said — and becoming increasingly popular in the United States.
"A butter and yeast dough with varied fillings create a comforting cake with a lot of love and history, especially in my childhood home," Nuchi writes on the bakery’s website.
Ayelet Nuchi sprinkles chocolate chips into babka dough at her forthcoming bakery in Palo Alto. Photo by Elena Kadvany.
Nuchi, a pastry chef, has run a catering company since 2000. Last summer, she decided to focus solely on her most popular catering item: babka.
Babka by Ayelet will serve not only the classic babka flavors of cinnamon and chocolate but also Nuchi's recipes for nutella, raspberry-cream cheese, apple, maple-pecan, halva and two savory flavors, tomato-mozzarella and butternut squash.
Fresh-baked halva babka at Babka by Ayelet in Palo Alto. Photo by Elena Kadvany.
The bakery will also serve tea and coffee and espresso from Four Barrel Coffee in San Francisco.
The renovated, bright space (previously a blow-dry bar) has a large green velvet couch, marble tables and chairs and bookcases filled with books about baking, cooking, fashion and design. There is also outdoor seating.
The interior of Babka by Ayelet. Photo by Elena Kadvany.
Babka by Ayelet will be open daily from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. The bakery is located at Suite 15 in Building 1 at Town & Country Village, next to clothing store Marine Layer.
