Clarified milk, chili and gochujang flavors abound in at the newly opened Nine Winters Bakery.
When you walk into the spare yet sparkling storefront, you’re hit by an ambient soundscape of Korean soft jazz and a playful vibe: The walls are adorned with cute, anime-styled murals of youngsters frolicking with cats, dogs and a fox or two – like Nine Winters’ name, inspired by owner and head baker Marissa Ferola’s daughters. (If you go to Nine Winters’ website and navigate to the “who we are” page, you’ll see Ferola’s daughters in vibrant hanboks, listed as co-founders.)
Billed as Korean-American, Nine Winters has food that is even more free-form and full of gambol than the wall murals. Gochujang, the classic Korean chili-based sauce, is at the fore of many of the offerings and in ways you’d never imagine. Gochujang brownies, gochujang citrus sticky buns and gochujang Bolognese? Check, check and check. Then there’s the milk bread (a thick, sweet, light, white bread of Japanese origin) that is used for the injeolmi cream buns (a marvelous moon pie on milk bread buns instead of a brown cake) and finger sandwich assortments.
Nine Winters is open for breakfast, coffee and lunch, which has a trio of rotating finger sandwiches that make for a fun nosh. On recent trips, there was always a cucumber with whipped cheese (think Mrs. Dalloway’s crustless teatime snack, but on a milk bread bun) and a tangy fermented cherry concoction. My third had a rich gochujang chicken salad, and on a second visit, an Italian spin: mozzarella and cured meat. Each was a tasty, fast lunch without filling up.
That gochujang Bolognese is more substantial, coming as pleasantly al dente pillows of folded pasta (pulled noodles) that are raviolilike in form and come in a thick and chunky ground beef sauce that swaps out the Italian marinara for that signature sauce from Seoul. It’s a pretty satiating eat that delivers the best of all worlds – you get your essential meat ragu with a Korean kick.
Culinary curios to consider include peanut butter chili crisp cookies and triple chili ginger snaps on the sweet side and, on the savory, deviled mayak gyeran – essentially marinated deviled eggs. There’s cake to be had too, a blueberry upside-down cake and tangerine vanilla that’s made with Chantilly cream and described as being “like a creamsicle.” There are also doughnuts on Saturdays and secret cakes that pop up now and then.
Most intriguing are the unique slate of drinks. On an early sojourn I had Nine Winters’ milk punch of the day. Made with clarified milk and the essence of coffee, this was not the version I grew up with (my dad’s short blender cycle of bourbon and Breyer’s extra vanilla bean with farm fresh milk). No, infused with sassafras, herbs and some of those fermented cherries, what came to me was a glass goblet of what looked like fine wine and tasted like a room temperature sangria with the dark roasted acridness of coffee evident in the flourish of each sip. To wash down that delicious gochujang Bolognese I had The Galbi, an iced, salted coffee made with beef fat. Yes, you read that right. If it sounds weird – it’s not. It has a subtly rich beefy flavor that plays well with the salty roast at the center of a carefully curated infusion.
A few minutes’ walk away but still within Huron Village is the Chinese street food take on pizza and pasta at Fupo that we talked up recently. There’s something kindred there, as Nine Winters boasts spicy Korean spins on sweet foods.
Nine Winters Bakery, 292 Concord Ave., Huron Village and Observatory Hill, West Cambridge
Cambridge writer Tom Meek’s reviews, essays, short stories and articles have appeared in WBUR’s The ARTery, The Boston Phoenix, The Boston Globe, The Rumpus, The Charleston City Paper and SLAB literary journal. Tom is also a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics and rides his bike everywhere.
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