All rise: James Beard Award semifinalist The Burque Bakehouse will have you believing the hype

For the second time in the last three years, Albuquerque has produced a James Beard Award semifinalist in the baking categories.

Nobutoshi “Nobu” Mizushima and Yuko Kawashiwo of Ihatov Bread and Coffee in Nob Hill earned semifinalist honors for Outstanding Baker in 2022.

This year, married couple Sarah Ciccotello and Chris McQuary’s Burque Bakehouse earned the semifinalist distinction for Outstanding Bakery.

All rise: James Beard Award semifinalist Burque Bakehouse will have you believing the hype

It’s a remarkable feat for a city the size of Albuquerque, and one that reflects a thriving baking scene. Roughly 500 years after the Spanish brought the beehive-shaped horno oven to New Mexico, Albuquerque can boast of a diverse and accomplished roster of bakeries ranging from French and Italian to numerous Mexican panaderias.

At The Burque Bakehouse, Ciccotello and McQuary represent a new generation of bakers who have taken a bootstrap approach to the business. They built a following over several years selling baked goods at the Downtown and Rail Yards Markets and launched a brick-and-mortar establishment in 2020 with the help of a Kickstarter campaign.

The location at the former home of a Dairy Queen on South Broadway is convenient to I-25 and Central Avenue, and offers a small parking lot. Beneath the immaculately stuccoed exterior, you can see the outlines of its former incarnation in the low-rise building with a heavy, overhanging roof. A few stools are provided for sitting, but it’s primarily a takeout operation. You order at one window and pick up at another.

Social media is rife with photos and tales of long lines, so I was anticipating a wait when I arrived on a Friday around noon. Instead, there was only one other patron there.

I had prepped by studying the online menu, only to find out when I got there that some things had sold out and others were not available.

The bread selection was down to a Rye Sourdough and a Croissant Loaf. No sign of the Honey Wheat Pan Bread or the Country Sourdough with toasted pine nuts, black pepper and pecorino cheese I had seen online. The rye, served wrapped in plastic and unsliced, was a tall, armor-plated loaf with a soft, chewy inside flecked with seeds. It was nutty with a subtle maltiness, and its tiny crumb made it ideal for soaking up butter after a cycle in the toaster. It’s good for about four to six slices, depending on how thick you cut it.

The bakery specializes in Viennoiserie, a name the French gave to baked goods from Vienna, Austria. Typically, these items are made from croissant dough — similar to puff pastry but with yeast for a lighter texture. The dough is folded with butter to make thin layers.

The Bakehouse’s skill with this form is perhaps most evident in the Green Chile Croissant ($5), a flaky blimp bedazzled with house-made green chile jam, green chile flakes and tomato powder. A single bite shatters through the sweet and savory flavors in the outer shell and then more layers of crisp, paper thin sheets before arriving at a soft airy center filled with melted Tucumcari jack cheese and chopped green chile. Remember to use a napkin. Or better yet, a drop cloth. It was outstanding, and the crisp little thumb of cheese that had melted out of the bottom was a bonus. Save it for the last bite.

The same croissant dough is showcased to different effect in a Potato Danish ($6.50), a lacquered rectangle artfully garnished with a pickled okra. The layers were more dense and softer, and served as a kind of frame for a tasty filling of thin slices of potato and mild-flavored raclette cheese.

Along with croissant dough, the Bakehouse turns out a pizza dough that’s available to-go. Alternatively, you can sample it in an inch-thick rectangular slice of Kale and White Bean Pizza ($7). The crust was like a good focaccia: crispy on the rim and bottom, soft and with lots of air holes inside. The beans provided a creamy base for kale that was crisped up from the oven and had most of the bitterness cooked out of it. Each bite carried layers of flavor: a hit of lemon, then garlic, then a burn at the end from the pepper flakes.

Lest you think all of this baking expertise is in service of the savory, there is an ample selection of sweet stuff too. Among the Viennoiserie selections was a Jam Bun ($6) that is like a croissant in muffin form. The outside was dusted in spiced sugar and the inside held a terrific tart, spicy apricot jam. I would have welcomed more of it.

The sweets menu includes a selection of cookies ($2.75). Choices that day were down to Chocolate Chip and Sesame. Both were big, buttery disks. The nutty, salty sesame cookie made an apt counterpoint to the rich chocolate chip studded with large chips that were partially melted.

The drinks menu has a selection of drip coffee, lattes, hot and iced tea, and hot chocolate. Coffee beans come from Cutbow, a local roaster. I tried the daily special of a Cardamom Vanilla Latte ($5.25). Creamy and quite sweet, with a piney finish from the cardamom, it was very good if a little undersized.

Gluten-free options are limited. The Cocoa Chewy cookie ($2.75) is a standby, but it had sold out by the time I got there. I took solace in a Gluten-free Almond Financier ($6), a tea cake made with buckwheat flour that got its name because its creator worked in a bakery near Paris’ financial center. The hockey puck-sized cake was dressed elegantly in a paper wrapper. Beneath the rubble of sliced almonds was a very moist cake bursting with almond flavor.

The place was very well-staffed. My order came out in about five minutes.

Availing yourself of these treats might take some planning, as the Bakehouse is only open three days a week. The server told me that Saturday and Sunday mornings were the busiest times. He also said that the days of operation may expand to Thursday in the future.

Believe the hype. Burque Bakehouse represents the vanguard of the Albuquerque baking scene. The creativity and attention to detail on display makes it a must-visit for both locals and tourists. Be sure to get some things to try right away and others to save for later.