350 E. Michigan AvenueI have to be honest. Before the fire, I had only been in Sarkozy Bakery once. J and I, like fools, tried to walk in on Fat Tuesday and just pick up a paczki. No surprise now, but they didn’t have any left. Unfortunately, that was the only time we had ever stopped in the old store.
Fast forward to last Friday, we had some work crews at our house still fixing damage from last winter and we wanted to get out for a little bit. I had read in the Gazette a few weeks ago that Sarkozy was serving lunch now and that sounded like a great option.
The new Sarkozy Bakery is on Michigan Avenue in downtown Kalamazoo in the Columbia Plaza Building just west of South Pitcher Avenue. The new bakery is gorgeous. There is a big, open layout with modern furniture and stainless steel everywhere. We actually weren’t sure that we could eat in until I parked my truck on the street right in front of the building and saw the large dining room through the picture windows that overlook the busy downtown street.
The menu is pretty small serving up only a few sandwich options, soup, salads, quiche, and some pizzas. None of the sandwiches really did anything for me so I ordered off the pizza menu.
The pizza comes in one size, 8″ and for the base price, you get to choose two toppings. I went with pepperoni and basil and holy cow did this pizza come out delicious. The crust on this pizza was very thin, very crispy and so full of flavor. It had bubbled up in places making some parts darker than others, but that just added to the overall texture and flavor. The small pizza was delicious, but just a little too small for a big guy. I loved it…a lot…, but probably could have eaten two.
J found a sandwich she thought sounded really good. She ordered the Curry Apple Chicken Sandwich. The delicious Ciabatta roll is filled with poached chicken, tart apple chunks, and curry mayo. I was jealous of this sandwich just looking at the bread. It looked so good although very little inside of it sounded good to me. However, everything inside sounded good to J and she said the sandwich was delicious. I think she was a little sad when she got to the end of it.
We had a little bit harder time finding something for L. We can always just order her a pizza, but she’s really been on a grilled cheese/quesadilla kick lately. They didn’t have either, so we instead ordered the the Peanut Butter and Jelly minus the jelly.
The sandwich, the way she got it, is Oatmeal bread with a special peanut butter. She only took a few bites, but that has kind of been the trend at restaurants lately with our two year old. Since she wasn’t going to eat it, I stole it from her. It was a pretty standard Peanut Butter sandwich. I couldn’t tell if the chunkiness was from the actual peanut butter or it was the oatmeal bread. Either way, didn’t matter. It was still good.
For dessert, we added on three chocolate chip cookies to round out the meal. L would have made all three her lunch if she could have, but she only got one. Momma and Daddy wanted one too, ya know. The cookies, like everything else we ate, were amazing.
After adding on a couple of bottled pop’s, our bill came out to around $25. Sarkozy Bakery is such a great little lunch spot in a vibrant downtown area. For us, it’s a special trip downtown, but for those in the downtown high rises, this is truly great spot to seek out on a regular basis.
8″ Pizza w/Pepperoni and Basil
Curry Apple Chicken Sandwich w/Lentil Salad
Chocolate Chip Cookies
