HOURS: OPEN MONdAy THROUGH FRIdAy 7 AM – 7 PM | SATURdAyS 8 AM – 5 PM | ClOSEd SUNdAyS won the bet, their patrons are clearly the big winners as a result of their efforts! The café occupies a relatively small space in the industrial center where it is located. Upon entry, patrons are visually greeted by the counters filled with wonderful sweet and savory offerings that are baked/prepared fresh daily on site by Ivo, Rufo and their small staff. Behind the counter, guests can see the bakers hard at work in the well-lit and very clean kitchen area, preparing old fashioned Italian recipes from Milan and Northern lombardy regions. The interior dining area is cozy and a bit crowded, with only four small tables and chairs and a few counter seats along the window. Outside, a covered “gazebo” has been erected for warm weather dining, under which four more tables offer overflow seating. due to the compactness of the interior, it is not unusual to see a queue line streaming outside the front door of Café Gran Milan. In spite of its obscure location, the café has amassed quite a following in the short time it has been open. There are quite a lot of menu items offered by this small business suitable for breakfast, lunch, or anytime dining. For breakfast, the menu includes numerous savory breakfast sandwiches, quiche, ham and cheese brioche, croissants, smoothies, juices, fruit bowls and yogurt parfaits. They serve Felmoka Italian roasted Artisan coffee, made in Varase, Italy, and also sell bags of the coffee beans in the café. A full range of hot and cold espresso drinks are also available, as well as an assortment of teas, sodas, bottled water, and juices. The lunch menu includes numerous fresh salads, made-to-order pizzas and pannini sandwiches, Foccacia bread, and soups. All breads and pizza dough are made fresh on-site daily by Rufo. Occasionally, other lunch items are available, such as home-made lasagna and calzones. Always available are an assortment of luscious Italian pastries which customers admire as they SAVORy FOCCACIA BREAd (FOREGROUNd) PASTIRES IN BACkGROUNd contemplate what to order. The chalkboard menu boards mounted on the wall only include a fraction of the items offered at Café Gran Milan. They usually have printed menus available, but they were being reprinted at the time of this review, in order to add a few new items. My guest and I visited the café twice to gather information for this review because there was so much to see and so many questions to ask about the various items offered. (Of course this meant we had the chance to try different items on each visit!) Our first visit was on a Friday afternoon around 2:00, and when we arrived, there were no customers at the counter, although three of the four tables were occupied. We sat down briefly to review the menu boards, and within two minutes, there were at least 10 customers queued up in a line to place orders. The lone cashier and server at the time, Myra, handled the “rush” calmly, and with finesse, patiently describing the various pastries to each patron who inquired. Although a steady flow of customers followed, we managed to order a sausage and pepperoni pizza for lunch. We also ordered an Olive Stick, one of the café’s most popular selling items--a long, soft break stick with small green olives baked into the dough. My friend enjoyed the bread stick more than I, as I found the green olives to be a bit salty for my taste. I think I may have enjoyed it more with black olives. The pizza, however, was absolutely scrumptious! Baked with a thin crust like true Italian pizza, the hot, steamy, cheesy pizza had excellent flavor! It was hard not to devour the entire 14” pizza at one sitting; however, we resisted so that each of us could sample a pastry for dessert. One of the reasons the pizza may have been so excellent (besides the fact that it is made with all fresh ingredients) may be that ROSA, IVO, MyRA, RUFO ANd MARCOS
Contra Costa Marketplace - June 2016
To see the actual publication please follow the link above