The family-run spot in Little Italy isn’t afraid to experiment, also making bougatsa in flavours like apple caramel and lemon ricotta.
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Nutty Greek Bake Shop
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Open: Tuesday to Friday 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed Sunday and Monday
When it comes to sweet treats at the Nutty Greek Bake Shop, the choice can boil down to a pastry as it’s made in Greece or its created-in-Ottawa cousin.
Take its bougatsa, a pillow-shaped phyllo pastry for one with a creamy, custardy filling, which for me is the main attraction at Ottawa’s only Greek bakery.
The origins of bougatsas go back centuries. While they’re native to northern Greece, regional variations of bougatsas can be more or less creamy, and more or less sweet, or even savoury. Specialty shops called bougatsadika or bougatsopolia, sell only bougatsa.
In Ottawa, at this from-scratch bakery that marks its 13th anniversary this month, the bougatsa ($4.25) reflect the recipes and flavours of Greece’s Peloponnese region in the south of the country, where its owners and operators, the Papadopoulos family, came from.
Two kinds of bougatsas here are traditional. The most traditional bougatsa, which is also the most popular of the bakery’s bougatsas, is dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon and filled with a perfectly textured, not-too-sweet, vanilla custard. The other one, called a “horio bougatsa,” is topped with sesame seeds and has a bit of manouri cheese inside with its custard, so that sweet and savoury mingle.
Then there are the bougatsas that Eleni Papadopoulos calls “non-traditional,” which include flavours such as apple caramel, cherry, blueberry, chocolate and lemon ricotta.
“That’s my sister and I going a little crazy,” says Eleni Papdopoulos.
You won’t find bougatsas like these in Greece, or in other Greek bakeries, Papadopoulos says. It took some persuading, she adds, to win over her traditionalist father Thanasi and mother, Christina. They are all co-owners of the business, and Christina is ever-present in the bakery’s kitchen, preparing, mixing, baking and overseeing.
The same choice between tradition and innovation can be seen in the section of the bake shop’s showcase dedicated to baklava.
Traditional Greek baklava ($4.25) here is massive, multi-layered, walnut-y and honey syrup-soaked. But Papadopoulos and her sister Anna, who are Ottawa-born, wanted their own spin on a traditional chocolate baklava. To that end, they mashed a chocolate brownie in between slices of their mother’s baklava and doused the whole thing in honey-infused syrup. Somehow, the brownie baklava won their mother’s approval and it has been a favourite of customers for years, Papadopoulos says.
It was Eleni Papadopoulos who came up with the bake shop’s name, because most Greek desserts have nuts. Her father preferred a more traditional Greek “such as Parthenon or Acropolis,” she says.
Of the nut-forward desserts here, the one that really wins me over is the ridiculously moist, crowd-pleasing Greek almond cake ($4.25).
I’m also fond of the sour cherry cheesecake ($6.25), made with Greek yogurt, feta and cream cheese on a crust of Graham crackers, walnuts and almonds and a topping made with sour cherries imported from the Peloponnese.
The Papapadopoulos serve savoury options too, in particular catering to nearby office workers with pita wraps. Of eight pita options, the top three are chicken, gyro and then pork, Eleni Papadopoulos says.
However, for those in the know, there’s also a secret menu item — a pita wrap ($11.75) that includes chicken, gyro made of beef and lamb, and bacon.
“Some regular customers over the years would ask my brother what he eats and it was his combination wrap creation,” she says.
If you want that unwieldy carnivore’s fantasy, just ask for the “four horsemen.” Nice to know, then, that the apocalypse could come with a tasty piece of bougatsa or baklava on the side.
Do you have a favourite place to get a little treat in Ottawa? Send Peter Hum an e-mail to share your picks.
