The Sunnyvale Sun
Community
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Flour Power: Irit Ishai (left), Kathleen De Manti and Matt Ives recently opened Sugar Butter Flour, a wholesale/retail bakery and cafe, in Sunnyvale.
Local bakery adds retail to expand sweet business
By Erin Hussey
Irit Ishai, a native of Israel, has an impressive résumé.
She's lived in Paris, New York and Copenhagen, served in the Israeli military, traveled throughout South America and has a bachelor's degree in communication and government.
But she's not a specialist in international relations. Ishai is a baker and co-owner of Sugar Butter Flour, the newest bakery in Sunnyvale.
"I always enjoyed baking, but I never thought it would be my profession," says Ishai, who first started baking to help pay for her undergraduate education in Israel.
"After a while I became more interested in baking than what I was doing in school."
After earning her college degree, Ishai decided what she wanted to do most was bake.
Within five years, Ishai became the head pastry chef at Orna and Ella, one of the most famous establishments in Tel-Aviv. At this long-time café, which many guidebooks say is always busy because of its great pastries, brioche and espresso, Ishai specialized in traditional French desserts.
Then, in 2000, she moved to the Bay Area with her husband when he decided to join a start-up. Once in California, she immediately started making an impact on the cooking scene.
She began working with David Kinch, current chef-proprietor at Manresa in Los Gatos, and at Sent Sovi in Saratoga. Concurrently, she spent a year perfecting her chocolate-making skills at Fleur De Cocoa in Los Gatos, working under master pastry chef Pascal Janvier.
When Kinch opened Manresa in 2002, Ishai went to work as a pastry chef.
Two years ago, Ishai decided to open Sugar Butter Flour, a wholesale bakery, with cooks Kathleen DeManti, former pastry chef at Seven Restaurant and Lounge in San Jose, and Matt Ives, a former line cook at Manresa.
"We've been in the business for 31/2 years as a wholesale company," Ishai says. The trio ran their bakery out of a rented kitchen space in Mission College at Santa Clara.
At their wholesale company, Ishai, DeManti, Ives and 12 additional cooks make and deliver fresh desserts to local restaurants and large hotels.
"In the beginning we had only one or two customers, but now we have more than 20 who order by the thousands, so we needed our own place," says Ishai.
The group's initial plan was to look for a larger kitchen, but what it soon found was that pairing a wholesale bakery with a retail bakery would be a unique and promising business endeavor.
"When we looked around we found that there were few places that actually have a store front in addition to a wholesale [operation], so we decided this might be a good place to start," says Ishai.
The new retail/wholesale Sugar Butter Flour bakery opened its doors in early March at its new location in the Cherry Chase Shopping Center.
In addition to Ishai's desserts, which she says are inspired from tastes from around the world as well as her pastry experience, the menu at Sugar Butter Flour includes soups, sandwiches and wedding cakes, all preservative-free, made-to-order in-house daily.
While DeManti specializes in the customized wedding cakes, Ives is in charge of the menu and fresh-baked breads.
"It took a while to figure out that I could do this by myself and take advantage of what I've learned through the years and start something on our my own," says Ishai. "Plus I have two really good partners."
Sugar Butter Flour, 669 S. Bernardo Ave. in Sunnyvale, is open from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the weekends. For more information visit www.sugarbutterflour.com or call 408.732.8597.
