Marla Bakery Revamps Staff and Menu With Focus on Savory

Marla Bakery is returning to its roots, bringing co-founder Amy Brown back to head up the kitchen program. Brown took a maternity break, and she has returned lead up the savory program, and with an all-new fall menu to boot.

Though Marla Bakery is often thought of as for pastries and morning fare, the Outer Richmond location also has a full dinner program, and the new menu features dishes like oven-roasted pork belly with spiced white bean cream, charred torpedo onion salsa, and crispy leeks; mussels and clams in escabeche; and whey-brined roasted chicken with citrus-glazed sweet potatoes and carrots, pasilla cream, nora pepper butter, and pea greens. Helping Brown with this is her new chef de cuisine Max Newman (Zuni Cafe, Black Jet Bakery), and he’ll be working on breakfast, lunch, and brunch, too.

Taking over the bread program is chef Sean Ehland, who since Aster’s opening has been its pastry chef. Now, he’s not only making the move to Marla as the bread chef, but also as a partner. He’ll be making some tweaks to the current offerings and adding a rotating seasonal bread.

Finally, Nicole Walsh (Mission Pie) is taking over the pastry program that Brown built, adding things like the “strawberry bay parfait,” a layered dish of dark fudge cake, strawberry bayleaf gastrique, and baynut cream.

It’s a lot of new changes — which are all already in effect — but they’re all ones that Brown and co-owner (and husband) Joe Wolf believe have brought the concept to finally “have really reached the evolution of Marla Bakery.”

• Marla Bakery, An Outer Richmond Restaurant & Retreat [ESF]
• Marla Bakery Brings Back Dinner [ESF]