Exclusive: Chad Robertson Talks About His New Brooklyn Bakery

Things Bakers Know: The King Arthur Baking Podcast - King Arthur Baking Company

Chad Robertson, renowned baker and founder of Tartine Bakery, shares exclusive details about his new Brooklyn-based bakery, Altbau, a multif

Key takeaways

• Altbau is not just a bakery but an immersive cultural hub designed to foster creativity and community through education and collaboration.
• Robertson emphasizes real-time baking and fresh offerings throughout the day, moving away from traditional all-night baking schedules.

Main topics

• Chad Robertson's new bakery in Brooklyn
• Altbau: concept, design, and location

Notable quotes

"I want to add something to the already amazing food culture that's here."

Conclusion

Chad Robertson's new Brooklyn bakery, Altbau, represents a bold evolution in

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) This episode is brought to you by King Arthur Bread Flour. So many of our bread recipes and pizza recipes call for bread flour, and here's why. With a higher protein content than all-purpose flour, bread flour gives you strong, stretchy, elastic doughs that proof and bake gorgeously. Buying bread flour on our website or grocery store shelves, just look for the blue flour bag. Speaker 1 (0:27) From King Arthur Baking Company, this is Things Bakers Know. I'm David Tamarkin, King Arthur's editorial director. And Speaker 3 (0:33) I'm Jessica Badalana, staff editor at King Arthur Baking. And today we're doing something we have never done before. We're popping into your feed with a very special bonus episode. Speaker 1 (0:47) Ding dong. We're here. Ding dong. Speaker 3 (0:49) Wake up. Here we are. When our friend Chad Robertson, star baker of Tartine Bakery, joined our sourdough episode in May, he also gave us some insider information about a new project that he is opening in New York City. And when that episode aired. We weren't at liberty to share all the details of that project, but we are now. So we are sharing that segment of the interview with you here today. Speaker 1 (1:18) Yeah, this is the most exciting bakery news of the year by far. I mean, I think so. It's exciting for me because, you know, it's just down the street in Brooklyn for me. Speaker 3 (1:29) Yeah. I mean, it's also exciting because like, have we ever broken news? Have you ever in your career broken news? Speaker 1 (1:36) I've broken news many times, but it has been a while. Speaker 3 (1:39) Yes. Speaker 1 (1:40) I started in hard news. Yes. Yeah, but this is exciting. And I just, it's important enough that we wanted to share it. And I love, I also just love just sneaking up on our listeners to say hi. I was Speaker 3 (1:54) in New York in April when we were launching the book of pizza. And I had an opportunity, Chad is an old friend of mine. And I had an opportunity to go see the new space in Brooklyn. And it's... Just a stunning freestanding building in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg, which I feel like is sort of a unicorn. Giant windows flooded with light, beautiful walnut floors, and just like a very beautiful space with an upstairs that they'll use for education. It has a pastry room. It has a bread room. If you have been to any of the Tartines, the Tartine Manufactory. you know just like that they also have beautiful design in addition to beautiful breads and pastries. So the space is very stunning and it's always fun to see a construction site and just see, you know, a bakery emerge out of that. So I'm super excited. I'm also very envious of you. Not for the first time and not for the last time. Speaker 1 (2:48) Well, I was about to say it's great that you got an inside look because I suspect there will be lines and you'll never get in again. Speaker 3 (2:56) Yeah, and I know how you feel about lines, so. Speaker 1 (2:58) I'm never going. I'm just, I'm going to live vicariously through this interview. So enjoy this interview. Yes, let's hear it. Speaker 3 (3:08) So I think that I probably speak for a lot of your fans in asking, like, what's happening now? Like, you've relocated from the West Coast to the East Coast. What's going on? What are you up to? Yeah, Speaker 2 (3:21) you know. Speaker 2 (3:24) Yeah, it's been quite the journey, you know, kind of looking for new projects to do on my own. And I was connected with someone who's an investor and this guy was in New York and he's like, you know, I need someone to help me. I need someone to help set up like a sourdough pizza thing. And I was like, you know, that could be fun. I mean, no big deal. But, you know, we found, we were looking around in Manhattan and Brooklyn and we found this building in Brooklyn that was just