Sourdough Bakery and Steakhouse

Bakery Now Open, Steakhouse Coming Soon

Breadsong is a sourdough bakery offering espresso, salads, sandwiches, wine flights, charcuterie & cheese plates at lunch.

Steakcraft is a steakhouse focused on wagyu from California, Australia and Japan, with an extensive wine list and full bar.

What is important for everyone to know about your business?

I was born in Carmel and went to Carmel schools growing up so we wanted to build a place where we could spend time with other locals and friends who are visiting. Since Carmel is dear to me and my wife April, we set out to create a restaurant that honors the uniqueness of the area by choosing items that focus on terroir. So the food, the art, and the wine are all curated to be expressions of unique and specific places or moments in time. And if you think about it, that’s what good friendships are about – sharing specific, unique experiences together at different moments. But I think the basic insight behind the restaurant is that terroir is a multifaceted phenomenon. It’s not just about food, because individual minds, ideas, and personalities have their own terroir, their own unique origins, as well.

What is unique about your business?

Besides the intense focus on terroir, by day we’re a bakery, a coffee house/roaster, a butcher, and a bakery that roasts our own meats and makes sandwiches on our own bread. At night we turn into a Wagyu-focused steakhouse with a full bar. We have an extensive glass and bottle wine list that’s available at both lunch and dinner.

As a new business to The Crossroads – what do you want people to know about you?

My relationship to the Crossroads goes back to my childhood and some of my earliest memories. In the 70s, when free-range parenting was all the rage, I was a toddler who lived across the street in an apartment building that was no longer there. I would wade in the Carmel River and wander around in the oak trees in the field where the Crossroads was eventually built. As the center was developed I watched the buildings go up. I went to the restaurant known as Sambo’s every day where my mom, dad, and three older sisters all worked. Many of my early, positive, childhood memories are from experiences at or near the center. Now, as an adult, it’s been a pleasure watching Cynthia and her team transform the center into something greater than a collection of shops – it’s a true community gathering place. It feels really great to be a part of something that began in my early childhood and, much like terroir is to food and wine, had a unique impact on my growth.

What products/services do you offer?

Small batch everything! We make almost everything we can on site: sourdough loaves, our featherlight roll, doughnuts, pastries, chocolates, ricotta cheese, beef tallow, ice cream made to order with liquid nitrogen, craft cocktails, espresso, quiche, avocado toast, sandwiches on our bread with meats that we roast every day, duck fat fries from potatoes we cut, and salads.

But we also serve a number of items that are more than capable of expressing their unique terroir: local dairy, olive oil and honey from Carmel Valley and Salinas, California Wagyu from Marin county, Australian Wagyu, Japanese A5 Wagyu, cheese and charcuterie from around the world, single-origin coffee beans from all over the world that we roast in small quantities on site, wines from around the world, and local craft beer.

As far as services go, we offer daytime catering. This is mostly sandwiches and charcuterie/cheese plates for local businesses, but also picnic baskets for anyone who wants picnic-ready charcuterie and cheeses or great sandwiches that pair well with a canned cocktail, half bottle of wine or champagne split for their hike or a trip down the coast.

Hans & April Hess

Owners of BreadSong/SteakCraft

What are the best items on the menu?

The A5 Wagyu is spectacular but actually, I’ve had a preoccupation with almost everything on the menu for at least 10 years now. That’s one of the reasons I built BreadSong/ SteakCraft, I wanted a single place that served all the foods I love!

But if I had to settle on a single favorite item, I think our CBD sandwich* (chicken bacon doughnut) is fantastic. We start with bacon, a Panko breaded chicken thigh (deep fried in duck fat), some very crispy dill pickles and house made spicy aioli. We put all that between two halves of a big sugar doughnut that we make every day and fry fresh during the lunch service. It’s sweet and savory and is balanced well with the acidity and spice.

(*The CBD Sandwich contains no actual CBD, only a dad joke)

What are your customers going to enjoy the most when they visit you?

At lunch, the level of culinary effort that goes into the sandwiches is abnormally, and maybe even ridiculously, high. House roasted meat and freshly baked bread – pulled out of the oven and immediately used for a sandwich – is extremely rare for sandwiches in the $12-$16 range.

And all of our breads, including the doughnut, use wild yeast (also known as sourdough starter). But by controlling the amount we use and by using cold, slow fermentation times we’re able to achieve an astonishing range of flavor and nuance across our breads. And that’s just the bread! We take the same care with the Wagyu meats that we roast for the sandwiches.

I think the other thing guests will enjoy is the interior – it’s really visually interesting. Like the food, It’s unique, beautiful, multi faceted and terroir driven. The giant color photographs, hand printed the old fashioned way on Cibachrome by Christopher Burkett, have this quiet yet forceful expressiveness, this impossibly vibrant and luminous quality, that just isn’t reproducible with the modern methods that have replaced the craftsmanship of old. Christopher Burkett is known as the Ansel Adams of color photography with good reason.

How did you come up with the concept of 2 names and 2 venues?

From the beginning of thinking about the layout and the interior design I really tried to listen to the space. Originally, historically, our space was two different retail spaces. And since I had two different concepts that needed to share a kitchen (bakery/cafe and steak house) it became really apparent to me that I should design the front as an approachable, casual, open kitchen to reflect the bakery and cafe personality; while the space to the left of the front door needed to be fun, beautiful and inviting as a wine focused Wagyu steakhouse. So at night we bring guests straight into the dining room environment through the side door attached to the dining area. Then the kitchen, which is accessible to the front door during the day, reverses its role and takes a supporting role as SteakCraft’s back of house kitchen.

What is the difference between the services during the day and evening?

The daytime service at BreadSong is more casual and the price point is more appropriate for lunch. Besides sandwiches and salads though, we have charcuterie and cheese boards, along with some great glass wines and wine flights. Also during the day the butcher case and small grocery area are open for steak, cheese, charcuterie, coffee beans and some local products like olive oil and honey, to take home. Also during the day you can get our house made chocolates and ice cream that we fresh churn with liquid nitrogen.

At night we still have the charcuterie, cheese and salad as appetizers but the focus is on the Wagyu – whether domestic, Australian or Japanese A5, we have a range of beautifully marbled cuts that are complemented by an amazing wine list and a full bar.