Two civic minded Israelis are the masterminds behind Sidewalk Citizen Bakery in Calgary, home of possibly the best grilled cheese sandwich ever. But more about the sandwich and its winning combination of cheeses later because a great sandwich actually starts with great bread. In the case of Sidewalk Citizen Bakery’s sandwiches, the bread is slow and long fermented organic sourdough. And pretty much all the bread idioms and sayings apply to Sidewalk Citizen Bakery’s business and philosophy—bread is the staff of life, man does not live by bread alone and more than any other saying, breaking bread.
Sidewalk Citizen Bakery
Co-owner Aviv Fried started selling his homemade bread via bicycle. A self-taught baker, he trained with bakers around the world including Jeffrey Hamelman of King Arthur Flour in Vermont, in Paris with sourdough master Jean- Luc Poujauran and in San Francisco with Chad Robertson of Tartine Bakery. Selling loaves of sourdough bread to his friends began as a hobby and a way to donate to charity, but after a while he found he was more passionate about bread and creating a sense of community through a commitment to “street life” than he was about pursuing a career in engineering, which is what brought him to Calgary in the first place. Does baking bread lead to a more purpose-driven life? For Fried it did.
A Bakery Known for Breaking Bread
As his success in bread baking continued, the bicycle gave way to two brick and mortar locations. The bakery’s name, Sidewalk Citizen, comes from a book by Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and is all about a citizen’s place within a city, and their participation in the “sidewalk ballet,” or the continually moving scenes that take place between the people on the street. To further a sense of community Fried along with Michal Lavi, his partner in business and in life, created a dinner salon program called Tzatva (the Hebrew word that means sitting together) that brings a wide variety of speakers for “conversations of art and substance” including artists, doctors, authors, and thinkers. Fried has also taught baking to the community and is committed to locally sourcing many of the ingredients he uses, including red fife wheat that is used in baking and local honey from Mob Honey.
The World’s Greatest Grilled Cheese Sandwich
The Sidewalk Citizen Bakery has a menu of soups and sandwiches in addition to all kinds of pastries, both sweet and savory. The piece de resistance is the grilled cheese sandwich. It’s made on the house sourdough, of course, but in addition to the bread, it’s the genius combination of cheeses that really shine. It’s made with aged Cheddar, fior di latte, and Swiss Gruyère AOP (read more about Swiss cheeses you should know) with a drizzle of local Mob honey.
While we don’t know the maker of the Cheddar, it comes from Ontario so we are guessing It might be from Balderson, a producer who has won countless awards and was established as a cooperative of dairy farmers in 1881. Balderson makes several aged Cheddars including the one year aged Balderson Championship. We’re also guessing since the fior di latte comes from Canada that it’s from Santa Lucia, a family-owned producer from Ontario that has been making cheese since the 1960s and uses only domestic milk. The intensity of the Cheddar, gooey stretch of the fior di latte and nutty Gruyère AOP is an inspired combination, complemented with a tangy sour dill pickle. Grilled on a flat top, the bread is crusty and chewy and oozes with all the cheese and yet it isn’t greasy. It’s a sandwich that speaks volumes about bread, cheese and community.