Mediterra Bakehouse Opening Their First Café in Sewickley

Pittsburgh-based Mediterra Bakehouse is an artisan bakery known for their beautiful breads and unique pastries. Since its founding in 2001, the company has made dent in the city’s bread scene by committing itself to quality, and refusing to cut corners or take shortcuts in their baking.

Although they started as a small, family affair, Mediterra is used to expanding. In the sixteen years since they opened, their baked goods have spread throughout Southwestern Pennsylvania and Ohio. They company also has a sizable presence in Arizona, where they own 35 acres and grow red fife wheat (used in their red fife levain and red fife ciabatta breads). 

However, in 2018, the bakehouse will expand in completely new direction when they open their first brick and mortar cafe on Beaver Street in Sewickley.

The “Mediterra Café” will be bakery, café, and lifestyle market. In addition to freshly prepared meals, guests will be able to purchase the Mediterra breads and pastries they know and love, as well as other, lesser knowns specialities of the company.

Prior to starting Mediterra, founder Nick Ambeliotis worked as a food and cheese importer throughout the 1980s and 90s. Nick is reestablishing many of these connections, and the café will also be destination market for specialty cheeses and other items.

As a café, Mediterra will bring a similar commitment to quality in every dish served. Their kitchen will roast their own meats for handcrafted sandwiches, salads, and breakfast items. A coffee bar and tea will be also be availible, roasting Parlor Coffee and sourcing specialty teas. 

Currently Mediterra Café is aiming for a late spring opening in April or May.

Nick’s son, and the Mediterra head baker, Nicholas Ambeliotis says his father has always had the idea in the back of his mind to open a space like this with his children.

“He often says he has never been surrounded by so much talent,” says Nicholas. 

Mediterra has over 80 employees, including Nick’s sons and daughter, who assist with everything from bread production to marketing, and share a passion for high-quality baking.

All of Mediterra’s breads are made in the French tradition, using slow rising dough, no yeast, cold water, and baked in French hearth ovens. Often times their ovens are baking 200-300 loaves, and it is the bakers responsibility to making sure each one comes out perfectly. Many of their breads take 16-30 hours to produce.

Mediterra credits their slow rising technique for giving their bread its signature flavor and aroma.

“The thing that makes our breads special is we don’t cut any corners,” says Nicholas. “There are no shortcuts taken, just hard work and knowledge.”

At the Mediterra Café, the bakery will be completely open, so customers will be able to see their bread being mixed, shaped, and baked. Orders will be placed at a walkup counter. Dishes will brought out to their seats, or prepared to go.

It will be exciting to see the direction that Mediterra takes their latest venture.

“When my dad started the bakery in 2001, people told him he was crazy. ‘Pittsburgh isn’t a food town, and they already have Breadworks and Mancini’s’ The Atkins diet was the latest craze. But what we do is timeless. People have been making bread the same way we are for 3,000 years,” says Nicholas. 

Mediterra Cafe (430 Beaver Street)