Entertainment - Dining

Published: Thursday, Aug. 06, 2009

Dining out: Hush-Harbor Artisan Bakery and Café

Crusty loaves, savory quiches, sandwiches, salads and more are on the menu at this friendly bakery and cafe in Atascadero

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Hush-Harbor Artisan Bakery and Café is well known throughout the county for its handcrafted breads, pastries and pies, but it’s also a great place for gourmet lunches and Saturday breakfast.

Artisan baker Donnie Monroe and his family (wife Penni and two children) ended up on the Central Coast in part because they wanted to leave the hustle, bustle and smog of Riverside behind, but also because “I could see the whole wine scene here becoming bigger, and could see the spinoff that would follow suit.”

In fact, a couple of chance conversations while out wine-tasting led Donnie and Penni to look for a suitable commercial space in Atascadero, which they found at the site of a former bakery on El Camino Real.

Hush-Harbor opened for business in January 2003, and patrons quickly flocked to the array of freshly baked items such as crusty baguettes, multigrain whole wheat rounds, flaky croissants, ciabatta bread, fruit scones and cookies. As if all that weren’t tempting enough, the holidays heralded the appearance of homemade pumpkin, sweet potato and pecan pies.

At first, the cafe served not only lunch but dinner as well, a demanding schedule for someone that has to get up and start baking in the wee hours of the morning. Dinner also just “isn’t in the core model for a bakery/cafe,” explained Monroe, “so one of the biggest changes since opening has been just not doing dinner anymore.”

But lunch lives on with a tempting menu of salads, deep-dish quiches, and sandwiches featuring your choice of Hush-Harbor breads. There are daily specials such as a muffaletta or even a hamburger, and the regular sandwich lineup includes a hot roast beef French Dip with horseradish sauce, a gourmet tuna melt with pesto sauce, a number of hearty grinders, and a veggie delight that’s packed with tomato, roasted red pepper, red onion, cucumber, marinated artichoke hearts, provolone cheese and sprouts.

The generous salads available at Hush-Harbor are classics: a traditional Caesar, Cobb and Greek. There’s also a raspberry chipotle chicken salad featuring chicken glazed in warm raspberry chipotle sauce and served with tomato, onion and cucumber over a bed of mixed greens that’s been tossed with honey-mustard vinaigrette.

These days, Monroe isn’t doing everything himself, and is getting some “really good support” in the kitchen from artisan baker Brian Hewell and pastry chef Garrett Humphrey.

Both have been “given the creative freedom to come up with new ideas,” and both have responded. In addition to caring for the two-legged customers, Hewell has started baking healthy and very popular dog biscuits, while Humphrey has taken on the Saturday breakfast menu, which features treats such as French toast made with freshly baked Challah bread and a “Big D’s Benedict” served on a croissant.

Hush-Harbor also supplies its artisan bread to several local restaurants, gourmet shops and wineries, a side of the bakery operation that unfolded largely as Monroe had hoped, with “my bread, the wine industry and the restaurants all joined at the hip. I’m their baker, and we have a one-to-one communication — that builds into long-term relationships.”

While Hush-Harbor Artisan Bakery and Café has evolved as a business, the Monroes also observed that “we’ve evolved as a family as well, and we truly feel part of this community. In fact, the No. 1 thing that’s impressed us: the people in this town right here. They’ve embraced us and supported us and we’ve been blessed to have had things work out the way they have. This is our home.”