As some of you may or may not know, I’ve been hard at work writing a feature article on Chicago pastry. The actual focus of the article has shifted a bit, as they often do, but I conducted a few interviews I found to be very inspiring before the focus changed. Not wanting them to go unread by anyone except my editor and myself, I’m going to post them here once in a while. The first is with my one-time boss, Fabio Sorano of Letizia’s Natural Bakery.

Fabio is the manager of Letizia’s Natural Bakery in Wicker Park, he also happens to be Letizia’s son. The Sorano family moved to the states so the children, at the time young adults, could attend college. Letizia wanted to start her own business, preferably something the family could be involved in, and what started as a small catering operation has developed into one of the most popular European-style cafes in Chicago. I sat down with Fabio one sunny afternoon, sipping espresso and talking cake. (By the way, I’m “N.S.” and he’s F.S.”)

NS: How long have you been open?

FS: We’ve been open…it’ll be nine years in a month. November…I’d say 15th it will have been nine years.

NS: What made you choose this particular location?

FS: It was cheap. No body wanted to be here [laughs] and it was close access to the highways.

NS: You were mostly doing catering and wholesale then?

FS: Yeah, wholesale, yeah.

NS: Did you have any idea that this area would turn into what it has?

FS: I’ve worked in places that started out in bad locations that turned out to be really good, so I did see that happening. I do remember [turns in chair to face Division St.] standing out here in the wintertime and looking at the sidewalks and saying, “What he fuck? This is huge, we could do an outside café.” I’d never seen one in this area. Back then, mostly, the only restaurants around here were Mirai… they opened shortly after we did. There was Celluloid…there was nothing here. I’d always thought this would be perfect for a sidewalk café kind of thing and you know [indicates patio full of customers] it was. It totally is.

NS: Did your mom bake when you lived in Italy, or did she start here?

FS: She started here, because at first- well, we were kids so she was taking care of us. And she is a teacher by training, so she used to teach Latin and history in Italy. When she came here she wanted to open her own business and her friend who had a catering business was like, “why don’t you bake cakes for me?” And basically, I think that’s what makes our stuff different is that we don’t have pastry school backgrounds at all. Like, crostata is something we make at home; you can’t even get that in pastry shops in Italy. But that’s what we knew how to make so we figured we’d make that. And then everything else we kind of learned as we went.

NS: Your mom told me once about cheesecakes- she didn’t know how to make one but people kept asking her for them so she figured it out and now you guys have my favorite cheesecake in the whole city.

FS: Yeah, the caramel cheesecake.

NS: I tell people that story all the time because it’s so interesting that the most delicious cheesecake I’ve had comes from someone who didn’t know how to even make one.

FS: Well, we didn’t like cheesecake so we had to make it the way we would like it. But I think if you really look at the process it’s probably one of the simplest methods of making the cheesecake, you know. It’s a combination of making a simple recipe- just cream cheese, sugar and eggs and whatever else is in there and then baking it really slow for a long time, so it doesn’t poof up or down.

NS: So one unique aspect of Letizia’s is that neither of you has any formal training…

FS: And the other is our choice of ingredients, because we started out doing what we do now, you know, natural baking. That really helped us not only because it’s good for you but because it’s going to taste better. It’s not- well, you know, you worked here- it’s not sugar-free, wheat-free, low-fat, so I think the pastries you’re getting here are going to be a little bit different because they’re something we came up with. If we’d worked in French bakeries we’d probably know how to make croissants- and croissants and stuff like that is all awesome, I love to eat it, but there’d be a tendency to have Danish and stuff like that and we never had that stuff so we kind of looked at the recipes we had.

NS: Are a lot of these family favorites?

FS: Some of them are, like the crostata and so on, definitely. Basically, it’s something that, when we were about seven, [referring to himself and his siblings] my mom noticed we were gaining a lot of weight and so she stopped buying the pre-made- I mean, we don’t have Twinkies in Italy, but we have stuff that’s like Twinkies so she quit buying all that stuff and she’d just bake these crostatas which is just butter, sugar, flour, you know. So if you wanted a snack, you could have that. And within about a year [laughs] we shrunk right down. You know, it’s still a sweet, it’s still sugar, but not all the hydrogenated oils and all that processed stuff.

NS: I remember Letizia telling me that she would have an idea- something would just come to her from right here [points to head.]

FS: That’s exactly right. Like, I like mochas so one day we were like, “why don’t we take the vanilla out of this cookie, throw in some espresso, [shrugs and laughs] mix it up, and then instead of vanilla buttercream we’d make chocolate Buttercream then we’ll dip it.” And it’s like- wow, that’d be cool. Or like now, we have peanut butter and jelly cupcakes- put the jelly in the middle, make a peanut butter frosting, it’s wacky but a lot of our stuff comes out like that.

NS: Do you think you have a signature pastry?

FS: I think definitely the caramel cheesecake, that’s like, one of the big ones. [The assistant manager comes over that this point and briefly discusses doing inventory with Fabio.]

NS: So the cheesecake is your…

FS: Ah yeah, the cheesecake I mean, I know the little caramel nut crostata… I think those are like, the two signatures. If I ask people, everybody tells me there’s like a different you know, like, signature thing at Letizia’s. There’s a new cookie- it’s an oatmeal almond cranberry cookie, it’s crazy, you know, people go insane for it. And that was basically a variation on our oatmeal cookie. But I’d say the caramel cheesecake and the crostata.

NS: Are those your favorites?

FS: Luckily I’m not that big of a sweets fan. I mean, I like them…when I eat them I love them but otherwise… you know, everything was fine until we opened the restaurant [grabs and shakes belly] and then I put on like, 40 pounds because I’m around prosciutto and all that.

NS: And you guys are different in that way too because you also offer the savories.

FS: Right, like the panini.

NS: Do you still do the pizza rustica?

FS: We still do the pizza but not in the café, we have that in the restaurant and we don’t do the slices. It’s only for dinner. And the pizza, like I said, it’s a little bit different because it was a case of me going to a guy to get the recipe, teaching Luis how to make it, [Luis was a cook and janitor at Letizia’s, he passed away recently] Luis making it his own way for you know, six years, and now that’s how we do it.

NS: When did you open the restaurant?

FS: That was three years ago.

NS: And you’re still available to do catering, gift baskets, weddings?

FS: Yeah, totally, gift baskets, all that stuff.

NS: Do you guys think you’ll ever want to open a second location?

FS: [An ambulance drives by with it’s siren blaring, but Fabio starts to say “maybe”] I look for places all the time, but usually- so far, and I’m not saying this is always the case- usually the place is not good, or we can’t afford it, or there’s something major happening at the bakery where we can’t do it. So we’ve had opportunities for great spaces. Like, when I was opening next door this customer offered us this great space in Lincoln Park. Great space, total good deal and it was all because he moved that way and he didn’t want to drive over here. I was like, “No, I can’t afford it, the guy would build it and everything.” But it’s like, if I drop the ball, you know, like on the restaurant then…you know. So, we probably will but, I just don’t think that the machine is refined enough, you know? And if you look at the people who branched out and did a lot of stores, it’s not the ones who opened a store and then a year later opened another one; it’s the ones that opened one store for 20 years and then! Like, Chipotle and all that, these were places that like, did their thing for 20 years, they got it perfect and then they branched out. So, right now, between family and all this, we have our hands full. But someday, someday.

NS: Do you have any favorite bakeries from Rome?

FS: There’s a few in my neighborhood that just make insane stuff. There’s two in my neighborhood, one is called Le Mimosa, and they taught my mom how to do a lot of stuff because we got to know them, “oh hi, we have a bakery, this and that,” and they showed us cool cookies and things. Some of the frostings and stuff that they do, really simple. And their specialty is a cornetto- it’s like a croissant with pastry cream and powdered sugar on top and they make it like nobody else in Rome, it’s unbelievable. And there’s another place, it’s called [?] and their specialty is the torte de la Nona, it’s a tart filled with lemon pastry cream and toasted pine nuts on top and it’s insane. I don’t know, I can’t figure out how to make it. I think they use margarine because there’s just no way to get an all-natural butter tart to be like that. It’s that hydrogenated oil, you know, it makes everything pretty but it’s bad for you! [Laughs] They gotta have some sort of trick because it’s just buttery, flaky and crazy.

NS: Do you have any favorites in Chicago?

FS: Sure! Like, Sweet Mandy B’s because you know, it’s like, so different from what we do in the sense that it’s like American home-style. A big ‘ol slice of chocolate cake with a ton of frosting and you know, cupcakes that look like frogs and stuff like that. Sweet Thang, that’s great. You know, their croissants and their zucchini bread, that’s killer. I mean, I love going to bakeries, don’t get me wrong. I can’t think of a bakery that I don’t like, unless you know, it’s like Dunkin’ Donuts… and I actually like Dunkin’ Donuts, too. Everybody eats donuts.

NS: There are so many really American bakeries popping up everywhere now, especially now that cupcakes have kind of taken over…

FS: Yeah, taken off.

NS: Do you consider Letizia’s an Italian-style bakery or an Italian-American style?

FS: I would say definitely not Italian-American in a sense that we don’t have the kind of stuff- OK, the staples of an Italian-American bakery are going to be southern Italian pastries- cannoli, stuff like that. We don’t make that. Because we’re from Rome, it would be a lie if I made canolli. So we don’t really have that stuff. I’d say like, our pastries are more like the pastries you’d get in central Italy. But even then, there’s a lot of really homemade stuff, you know? I mean, clearly we have muffins and things, not Italian, but…

NS: Why is it so important that the ingredients are all natural?

FS: Well, we firmly believe that what you eat is a health issue, and so- you know, so many people who eat all this processed, like, fat-free stuff [wrinkles nose in disgust] and it’s so bad for you! And we always knew that! I mean, 10 years ago we were baking stuff with no margarine but it took a while for public opinion to come around. It took some crazy guy in California to sue Nabisco and the FDA about hydrogenated oil to get labeling. And now even the processed stuff is getting rid of it. So we really believe that there are side effects to not eating natural stuff. Organic’s great, when it’s available, hardly verifiable, very unreliable, so it’s not really something that… I mean, most of this stuff wasn’t even available organic when we first started, now there is a lot more stuff… But certainly it’s better than the processed stuff. And the taste- that’s the other thing- it tastes better and it’s better for you. It is more expensive, that is the difficulty, and it is more difficult, that’s the thing. We can’t make certain things, you know, it’s hard to find coconut that isn’t treated, things like that. But other than that, it’s totally worth it, it tastes better and it’s good for you.

NS: I think people that appreciate that there aren’t going to be trends here. You aren’t going to come in and find a low-carb muffin, it’s always going to be good and it’s always going to be “real” food.

FS: Just like you would make it at home. Which, in the end, is how we always did things so you know, it’s kind of easy. You know, people always say, “Oh the Italians are so smart, you know, the Mediterranean diet, you eat so healthy!” No, the truth is, meat is very expensive in Italy so you can’t eat it all the time. So are eggs! So you don’t eat eggs and bacon for breakfast because it’s just not available. And in the same way, they don’t have Crisco [disgusted] and stuff.

NS: I’ve found in my conversations with bakers in other countries, like, in Australia they don’t have cake flour so they find ways to make things with what they do have and in the end it’s probably a lot better than the short cuts we have here.

FS: Right, we have access to so many ingredients here; it’s unbelievable. I mean, just the fact that you can buy things like walnuts, you know, shelled hazelnuts here like, like, like it’s butter, you know? Like it’s nothing. I mean, we’re lucky like that. I’m just glad there’s this big overall trend of eating less but eating better quality.

[Woman stops to talk to Fabio about his 10-week-old puppy.]

FS: But there are places opening up like, you know, places that specialize in organic, which is great, you know. I think over all when you look at the long term effects of eating properly, you know- I mean, people might go to Aldi and buy the cheap processed shit, but in the end the healthy effects are going to cost them more. When I go to Italy, I eat like a pig [laughs] I eat all the time, and I don’t gain weight. And it’s not because I walk a lot, that’s the other thing people think. It’s just, if you don’t eat a lot of stuff that has hormones and things- bovine growth hormone will make you grow just like it does the cows, you know?

NS: And there’s so much sodium in processed foods, too, people don’t pay attention to that.

FS: It’s horrible. I mean, I don’t know, it’s always funny from the outside looking in. We went to this place outside of Vegas called The Omlette House, ok? Run by a couple of bikers, really cool. They have HUGE omlettes, so I was like, “what’s the baby omlette?” And he’s like, “that’s with three eggs.” So I’m thinking, what’s the big omlette and he’s like, “Oh, it’s six eggs. But we don’t salt them.”
“Oh! Ok, great! That’s right. So like, it’s ok to eat six eggs as long as you don’t put salt on them, I see.” It’s crazy! Crazy!

NS: I’m never curious about why we’re so fat, it doesn’t surprise me at all.

FS: [laughs] Yep!

If you’re in the Chicago area check out Letizia’s Natural Bakery, I worked there for about four years and the Soranos were like family to me. The flourless chocolate truffle is amazing, as are the cheesecakes.

And check me out on Etsy because I’m awesome.