Della Fattoria Bakery

Susan and I spent the weekend eating and drinking well with Brother Glenn, family and friends on the North Coast. On the way home, we stopped at Della Fattoria Bakery in Petaluma (near Santa Rosa, CA) for lunch. Della Fattoria is a small enterprise run by a mother and son. They make about 10 types of bread, as well as pastries, cakes and cookies. They were the example of a small, family-run bakery in Maggie Glezer's "Artisan Breads."

The bakery is small, but they have a number of tables and make a nice variety of sandwiches, piadini and breakfast dishes. We had sandwiches on their levain and their seeded levain and took loaves of the levain and their fig-walnut baguette home for dinner. Della Fattoria's breads are all sourdough and are baked in a wood-fired oven, and their breads are all boldly baked. The crusts all have a deep caramelized flavor I love. The crumbs are all remarkably moist, chewy and assertively sour. Each of the three breads we had the opportunity to taste ranked among the best tasting breads I have every had. Truly amazing stuff!

Regretably, we were not able to also sample their semolina bread, pan integrale, polenta bread, or several others, all of which were tempting. We will just have to return.

David