Here’s the UWS Dish: Wave Hill Breads’ Wild-Yeast Sourdough Miche (and Sfogliatelle)

By Abigael T. Sidi

Hard to believe, but it’s been a full year. You’re looking at UWS Dish No. 52, and I’m planning a year-in-review-type episode for next week. But in honor of this first anniversary, I had to go for something special. I may soon regret it, but I decided to share my family’s best kept secret when it comes to Upper West Side culinary gems.

The dish is not from a restaurant per se, and you might not even call it a dish, and it’s not available for most of the week, and where you’ll find it is not technically on the Upper West Side (but less than 100 feet north, right on the border). Dear reader, let me introduce you to Wave Hill Breads’ loaf to rule them all, their all-mighty miche, which you’ll find at their weekly stand at the Down-to-Earth Morningside Park Farmers Market (corner of Manhattan Avenue and West 110th Street every Saturday morning, weather permitting.) Get there early; my sense lately is that the secret is already out.)

Any European who moves to the U.S., including my French parents, rapidly faces an existential stress many Americans cannot or will not understand: “Where will we find the bread?!” New York may be an exception to the rule in that we’ve always been able to secure decent baguettes – on the UWS, at the likes of Maison Kayser (until they closed during the early days of the pandemic), Mille-Feuille Bakery (still going and stronger than ever), Breads Bakery (Lincoln Center), and, to an extent, Citarella (though, weirdly, their closest bread to a French baguette is not their “French” baguette, which is American style, but rather, the “rustic” one).

But make a stop at the first random corner boulangerie in Paris, buy a baguette “tradi” for a quarter of the price, give it a bite and, well, you know what I mean: It’s not the same.  What is the same, however, is the sourdough miche — a type of sourdough made with whole grains — offered by Wave Hill Breads, a small but growing baking company based in Norwalk, Conn., about an hour’s drive north.  Though the company does not yet have an outpost in the city, Wave Hill Breads visits farmers markets in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens throughout the week, providing plenty of opportunities to secure their yeasty gold.

One morning a few years back, we stopped by their stand on our weekly visit to the Morningside market, where we typically focused on fruits and vegetables. My mom noticed a beautiful, imposing, round loaf, which clocked in at 79 oz. and boasted what she excitedly described as “real-looking crust and real-looking dough.” The bread in question, the wild-yeast sourdough miche, was sold whole or into quarters, sliced or unsliced.

Back home, we proceeded to slice through the miche. From the get-go, the crackling of the crust, texture of the dough and deep yeasty and charry scents sent my parents into full-blown catharsis. They tasted the miche as it was, then again after a round in the toaster, and the “ooh là là’s” just kept coming.

My sister and I tried it as well and could only agree to the loaf’s exceptional quality: It has a real, restaurant-level depth of flavor (tangy, nutty, slightly sweet, slightly sour) and the texture – both the airy, not too chewy dough, and crunchy, seriously charry crust – is out of this world. We adopted the miche as a vessel for our daily avocado toasts and have never looked back.

Reached by phone, Wave Hill Breads co-owner Angela Topi shared some of her husband’s (Albania-native Tim Topi) baking secrets. “Tim lived in Italy for 15 years, where he learned the art of baking,” she said. “He moved here and started at Wave Hill in 2013, then became owner in 2015. There are no machines in our bakery, aside from an oven and a mixer. And what makes us very, very different from many bakeries is that we purchase the berry grains directly from the farmer, the whole grain in the shell […] which we mill on site right before mixing them in. So, the nutrients are there, the shells are there; that increases the freshness and flavor of the bread.”

Asked specifically about the miche, Angela shared that Wave Hill did not sell sourdough when Topi took over, and that the bread was his proud creation. “The founders knew this Frenchman in Vermont, Gerard Rubaud, who had a sourdough starter and recipe. Tim went up there to train with him, creating sourdough batards and baguettes. But then Tim tweaked the recipe a little bit here and there, and he created the miche. It is made of about 60% organic spelt berries, milled on site. Our dough [which uses King Arthur artisan bread flour] is very hydrated and fermented anywhere from 24 to 72 hours. The higher ratio of water changes the consistency of the bread: it’s crustier and it’s not like one of those crusts that when you bite it, it’s like gummy or hurts your teeth to chew.”

We were proud that Angela approved of how we store the miche during the week, sealed and in the fridge, and confirmed that it lends itself to freezing (which we often do in the winter months, just in case the market closes for a week; we have our stash, and thaw it overnight when needed).

On the bakery’s sfogliatelle – a shell-shaped Italian pastry with a cream filling – which we also often get because they are hands-down the crispiest and most delicious in town, Angela would not spill any bean except to say that Tim had learned the magic during his time in Italy and it was “his thing.” I included this ricotta-filled marvel of a shell pastry in the photo with the miche, you should run and get both.

Asked about opening an actual location in the city, Angela said that “there are a lot of projects going on all the time. But one of Tim’s goals is to probably open a coffee shop or maybe a bakery in the city. Time will tell!” Until then, the Morningside Farmers Market (every Saturday morning, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.) or any of their other market gigs in the city will have to do, and you can also order online.

Before I go, and since we’re on the topic of bread, my mom insisted I ask if anyone knows the name of another bakery that used to occasionally show up at the Morningside Market a few years back, and specialized in Nordic bread (with tons of nuts and seeds). The closest she’s been able to find in the city is Ole and Steen’s Danish rye bread, but she says that “it’s not quite the same.” If you have a name, please post in comments!

The Dish: Wild-yeast sourdough miche – quarter ($9.00)
The Restaurant: Wave Hill Breads, Down-to-Earth Morningside Park Farmers Market (corner of Manhattan Avenue and West 110th Street)

Read all Here’s the UWS Dish columns here.

Subscribe to West Side Rag’s FREE email newsletter here. And you can Support the Rag here.