Edible Food Finds: Biscotto Café
Photos by Linda Campos
Nestled between neighboring businesses, Biscotto Café’s cozy exterior matches the sweetness and welcome you find inside when you meet owner Barbara Anton. Barbara’s natural warmth is as present in conversation as it is in her delectable pastries and coffee. She lights up explaining how she can sense the doneness of her sweets by the smell from the oven and that her baking measurements are by sight and feel more than by spoon or by cup. Barbara applies her philosophy of balance and simplicity in her synthesis of Italian and Venezuelan heritage, bringing flavors of the world to Auburn. Like her, Biscotto Café is a delight.
Barbara was born in Lechería, Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, to entrepreneurial parents who’d emigrated from the Piedmont region of Italy. She grew up in her family’s restaurants, mentored in the art of creating delicious food and caring for customers. As a young adult she moved to Italy with her mother before relocating to Boston, where she earned a degree in business management. While in Boston, she met her husband, Michael, and came to live with him and start their family in Auburn.
Biscotto Café was born in 2018 of passion and necessity. At the time, Barbara had begun baking homemade sweets and bread to accommodate her daughter’s allergies. The creative process, enjoyable finished product and quest for income sparked her vision for a bakery. In a serendipitous series of events, Mike found an empty restaurant space which happened to be close to the site of the couple’s wedding reception. When she saw it, Barbara felt encouraged by the happy coincidence. The Antons took the leap and brought Biscotto to life. With its black-and-white motif, Biscotto is clean, quaint and comfortable and infuses the busy town with a chance to slow down.
The intention with Biscotto is to bring something unique to Auburn. In the age of drive-thrus, this bakery specializes in hand-, heart- and homemade pastries baked fresh daily, on-site. Guided by intuition and presence, Barbara crafts her pastries with care, sourcing from local farms including Nourse Farm in Westborough, Cooper’s Hilltop Farm in Rochdale and Hebert Honey in Oxford. Recipes are simple and echo Italian and Venezuelan flavors with ingredients such as coconut from the tropics or traditional Italian almonds and anise. Barbara strives to give her customers some of the food and drink experiences from her youth. Influenced by her time in Milan, the sfogliatella alla crema is light, fresh and sweet. Barbara says it brings her back to sitting in a café by Piazza del Duomo. She crafts a Papelon iced tea, made with fresh cane sugar juice, like the one she had as a child before going to the beach or fishing in Venezuela. The café’s name was born from the idea to give a complementary biscotto with coffees and specialty drinks.
Biscotto’s coffee is rich and smooth. Barbara and Mike worked with local roaster Good as Gold Coffee in Worcester to create a customized, balanced blend that carries notes of chocolate, apple and nuts. The experience of this coffee and their signature biscotto is an invitation to take a breath and connect through the senses to the present moment, an intention the Antons foster from the kitchen to the front counter. Whether you are grabbing a coffee or sitting to chat with friends, Biscotto Café is a welcome change of pace, a joy for the senses and comfort for the soul.
This story appeared in the Spring 2020 issue of Edible Worcester.
