The team behind
Bella Nashville, the popular wood-fired pizza spot in the Nashville Farmers' Market, is working to launch a bread bakery and retail store in East Nashville.
Bella Nashville Bakery is opening at 1010 Fatherland St., next to the Vietnamese restaurant Far East Nashville. Emma Berkey, who owns Bella Nashville with Dave Cuomo, says the space will primarily be a kitchen for expanding their bread business, but will also have a storefront selling artisan loaves, coffee and sandwiches to go (including breakfast versions).
As with Bella Nashville's pizzas, the sandwiches will feature a strong focus on fresh local ingredients, Berkey says. The coffee will be provided by local roaster Crema.
Bella Nashville has been baking bread as a sideline for a while, but the new space will allow them to expand their wholesale operations. They also plan to work on getting the loaves included in local CSAs. "One of our goals is to get the bread around to people in a fun, community-oriented way," Berkey says.
The bread varieties the bakery expects to sell include the popular sourdough white; the demi-baguette; the 100 percent whole wheat desem, a dense loaf made with flour ground in house; and a whole-wheat sandwich loaf — softer and more suitable for kids' lunches. (Cuomo, who runs the baking, is also experimenting with a wheat roll that may be sweeter and have raisins.)
Berkey says the breads will use all-natural starter and no commercial yeasts.
Bella Nashville Bakery aims to open at 1010 Fatherland St. around April 1. Follow the progress on Facebook or @bellaNbakery on Twitter.
