For Eleanora Nikolova, founder of DonChef Bakery (1408 W. Diversey Pkwy., 773-360-1282) in Lakeview, baking is entirely a family affair.
“I grew up literally in the flour,” said Nikolova, 35, who immigrated to the U.S. from Bulgaria 10 years ago for a job in Des Plaines. For close to three decades, her grandparents — both professional chefs — have owned and operated a number of bakeries in the Balkan country. Many family members, including Nikolova, have worked for the business. “When a lot of children were out playing I helped them a lot, not only in the kitchen but in the store,” she said.
It all began with Nikolova’s grandfather Nikolay Donchev, a self-taught baker, who was hired as a pastry chef in 1982 for the new Sheraton hotel in Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia. When Communism fell in 1989, he took advantage of a political climate more favorable to private businesses and left to open his own bakery. That bakery expanded to a handful of other locations, which Donchev helmed with his wife, Draga, whom he had taught to bake.
Previously trained in the kitchens of Switzerland, Austria and the former West Germany in preparation for his Sheraton role, Donchev had become adept at crafting many traditional European desserts, such as Sacher torte and apple strudel, recipes and baking know-how that he passed down to his granddaughter.
So it was hardly surprising when Nikolova, who had come to the States to work as an accountant for a Bulgarian trucking company, started to feel the urge to get back in the kitchen.
“I realized I wasn’t meant to sit in front of a computer screen all day,” she said. “I knew I wanted more for my life.”
About a year ago, Nikolova started to make plans to open her own bakery. She decided to name it DonChef, a culinary play on her grandparents’ last name in tribute to the man who had inspired her most.
“My grandfather is totally my role model. He’s worked all his life,” said Nikolova, adding that he even worked the day of his own wedding to Nikolova’s grandmother, before finally heading to the ceremony. “My grandparents have taught me so much. I want to follow in his footsteps.”
Now Nikolova is doing just that. This Valentine’s Day, she officially opened DonChef on Diversey Parkway near Southport Avenue. Her husband, Milen, helps her run the kitchen, while her father, Ivan, and grandmother, Draga, have come to the States briefly to help.
More Top Picks Harman Kardon Onyx Studio 4
When she told her grandmother she was carrying on the family tradition, “She was very excited. She didn’t even think a minute, and she came (from Bulgaria).”
Nikolova mostly specializes in a pastry not unfamiliar to the American palate: croissants. “At the moment we have nine different types of croissants,” Nikolova said, which includes plain, Nutella-filled, vanilla cream-filled, chocolate-covered and ones stuffed with more savory ingredients such as spinach and feta and ham and cheese. She even has her own croissant-hybrid — a hot dog wrapped in a croissant — which she has coined the “crodog.”
She also caters to American dessert preferences with a few items you won’t find at a Bulgarian bakery. “We make cupcakes and muffins, which aren’t very popular in Bulgaria.”
But for those hoping to try a traditional treat from her native land, she offers a loose rendition of a banitsa (a Bulgarian cheese pie made with phyllo dough, feta cheese and eggs), which at her restaurant is a “less greasy” version made of puff pastry and feta.
Pastries aside, Nikolova hopes to offer something a number of her competitors don’t; recipes made entirely from scratch. Part of her marketing strategy has included playing on this dissatisfaction with pre-made, processed products, including posting flyers on the windows that read “Tired of frozen food?”
“People in the States are tired of eating frozen food, they are tired of eating food out of a box,” she said. “I wanted to come up with something that’s natural ingredients, homemade.”
Though she has yet to have a significant influx of customers, she said that so far people have been nothing but satisfied when they’ve come. “All of them give compliments. I haven’t thrown away a single piece of food. Not even a bite,” she said. Given the quality of her apple strudel — flaky, with a warm, comforting cinnamon flavor — it’s easy to believe that.
But for the first time as owner, rather than just the baker, the pressure of running a bakery is definitely there. “I feel preoccupied all the time, because I have to do everything.” Nikolova also said for now she’s letting her customers “determine the hours,” which means spending the majority of waking hours in the shop.
But luckily she has a 9-year-old daughter, Christina, who also likes to bake, and who happens to be the exact same age Nikolova was when her grandfather opened his first shop.
And, much like Nikolova, “She comes here all the time.”
Twitter @ewickwire
DonChef
1408 W. Diversey Pkwy.
773-360-1282