I haven’t been to SAPA Bakery yet, not going to lie (But I have eaten the Stollen from there and let’s just say, sharing was not an option). In fact, I haven’t seen Mysuru in years but as Dina Weber and I talked, I could smell the aroma of the breads and pastries wafting in through her kitchen, and our conversation went on for longer than it ideally would have.
The 29-year-old founded this delightful bakery about four years ago, in a town where very few people would consider opening an eating joint that focuses on German food, but Mysuru is quite cool that way. Venturing out of a small village in the Black Forest region of Germany that Dina calls home, the young baker travelled around the word, working with chefs and bakers, honing her skills till she hit a pause in Mysore. She began her journey in 2014, travelling to Milan, Tuscany, Laos, Bulgaria, Burma, Cambodia – experiencing monasteries and permaculture farms and so n before she stopped by India. Even here, she was discovering the country through its soil and food – working with a school in Kodaikanal, an organic farm in Kerala, baking at a café in Leh and at a B&B in Goa.
But it was Mysuru that did something to her. “I cannot really explain it. One is that I really fell in love with India and two, I wanted to start something of my own but not in a big city. And when I came to Mysuru, I just knew this was the right place for me,” she says.
SAPA Bakery is no longer a stranger to those who enjoy good quality breads and café food — yes, people do drive down from neighbouring places for a bite or two, or three — and this weekend, Dina is presenting a really interesting pop-up in Bengaluru at The Courtyard where all the interesting pop-ups in the city happen.
Laced with memories of her summers back at home, Dina’s pop-up is all about nostalgia. “It's a sentimental reminiscence of how I would spend summers in Germany and the feeling of these really long, like weeks of summer holidays. In Germany, especially in North Germany, the days get really long because the sun rises at almost 4am. And since we don’t get much of the sun in winter, we take a lot of advantage of the sun and light during summer. You’ll see people going on hikes, bike rides, picnics, and with all these activities come different kinds of foods that we kind of associate with it, be it specific drinks or snacks,” she says.
Dina has taken all those experiences from her younger days and translated them into food for this popup. “I am more from the southwest part of Germany and there’s a lot of overlap with French techniques as well. Now, given that we don’t get a lot of fresh produce in winter, we preserve in summer, but summers are all about berries, cream, ham, and of course asparagus! Sometimes, we would actually ride to the neighbouring city to see if their asparagus was better than ours!” she laughs. Rhubarb, which has a really short season, finds its way into lots of bakes, preserves and compotes as well. “We just try to eat a lot of fresh food in summer,” Dina adds.
For the popup, Dina is using local ingredients — “I have had to replace white asparagus with green because you don’t get the white one here and even the cooked ham is from Bengaluru” — and putting them together to give diners a taste of Germany. “You have to understand something, I am not a trained savoury chef, so there’s a lot of sweet notes in my menu. But what we’ve done is a bit of both. But all the dishes will be light and minimal. While there will be meat and mashed potato, there will also be a Sabayone with the tangy rhubarb underneath to give a bit of a layer and some texture. Then there’s the Tart Flambé where crisp flatbread is served with creme fraiche and bacon and served with Limoncello Granita shavings over berries, whipped cream and sponge,” Dina says.
Is a German meal, even if it’s not really traditional, complete without potatoes? Of course not! The popup will also include a delicious combination of baby potatoes, asparagus, hollandaise sauce and ham, something that celebrates the seasonality of asparagus, not to mention the Dampfnudel, German steam buns with tomato plum chutney, Nürnberger sausage filling, and Gouda Mornay.
Summers in Germany, as Dina says before we wrap our interview, was all about sunshine and sweet memories of childhood, family meals and lots of freshness in food, something many of us would identify with, even those who may never have eaten a Kirschplotzer, which incidentally is a moist chocolate cake with cherries and as traditionally German as it can get.
The SAPA Bakery Brunch popup is being held on April 6-7 from 10.30am-1pm, at The Courtyard, Shantinagar, Bengaluru. Meal for one INR 3200