From the outside, it has the look of an early 20th century New York City storefront. On the inside, it’s a workspace for a popular Syracuse restaurant.
It also has the distinction of being located in what has been described as the “skinniest” building in Syracuse. The building measures 13.9 feet between the outer walls, and at one point the inside space is just a hair over eight feet.
It’s Francesca’s Bake House, and it’s where pastry chef Leslie Lisk puts her skills to work making bread, desserts and pasta’s for the neighboring Francesca’s Cucina restaurant.
“This is really a place for Leslie to work her magic,” said George Angeloro, who owns both the restaurant and bakehouse. “Because that’s what she is. A magician with breads and pasta, and of course with desserts.”
Francesca’s Bake House opened this month at 537 N. Salina St. It is, for now, strictly serving the restaurant. There are no plans for sales direct to customers, Angeloro said.
But diners at Francesca’s are seeing the results. Lisk has been making the transition from her former space in the restaurant’s basement to the new building, which was home to a retail pasta shop called Michael’s for decades in the 20th century.
Leslie Lisk, pastry chef at Francesca's Cucina, adds tomatoes to the restaurant's signature focaccia bread. She's working in a new bakehouse space next door to the restaurant.Katrina Tulloch
The bake house
On a recent day, Lisk was busy inside the skinny space making Francesca’s signature focaccia bread, with olive oil, rosemary, onions and tomatoes. She prepares 66 at a time. Focaccia is the only bread made in house at Francesca’s.
“We wanted to differentiate ourselves,” Angeloro said, noting the presence of well-known bakeries in the Little Italy / North Side neighborhood. “Columbus and DiLauro’s, their breads are outstanding. We would never want to try to compete with them.”
She also makes a wide variety of desserts, including the restaurant’s signature, the butter cake, the dessert Angeloro says “is what we, and Leslie, are known for.”
Lisk describes that as a “sticky, ooey, gooey” cake. But it’s not her favorite to produce in the bake house.
“I think my favorite thing to make is cheesecake,” she said. “I know I should be saying the butter cake, but it’s so time-consuming.”
Then there’s the pasta. For an Italian restaurant, of course, that’s important. Lisk makes pastas for all of Francesca’s specials, working in conjunction with the restaurant’s executive chef, Chris Carno. She uses bronze-cut dies, which are still in the basement area but will be moving soon.
“We do rigatoni, fettuccine, gnocchi,” Angeloro said. “We can’t pronounce half the dies that we use.”
“People ask me about Leslie and I say she’s literally like Pablo Picasso meets Wayne Gretzky,” Angeloro said. “She’s like the best of everything. She’s just so creative and so inventive. I don’t know what’s cooking up in her head but it’s crazy, some amazing stuff.”
And that helps explain why Angeloro was motivated to find a better space for Lisk to work.
Francesca’s Bake House opened in Syracuse's famously skinny building at 537 N. Salina St. It used to be Michael's pasta shop for decades. Now, it's where pastry chef Leslie Lisk makes desserts, breads and pasta for Francesca's Cucina next door.Katrina Tulloch
The building
Angeloro remembers hearing stories from his family about, Michael’s, the pasta shop that once occupied the space at 537 N. Salina St. The building, Post-Standard archives show, had previously been home to a laundry, a professional “clairvoyant,” and a bait-and-tackle shop. (The bait shop once advertised it was looking to buy “50,000 worms.”)
“But it was most well known as Michael’s pasta shop, (operated by) a husband-and-wife team from what I understand, who made some of the best homemade pasta in Central New York,” he said. “From what I’ve been told, people used to line up down the street for the holidays.”
Angeloro, whose family has a long history on the city’s North Side, opened Francesca’s in 2004. He always had his eye on the adjoining building, which sat vacant for years, and made the offer when it came up for sale.
The goal really was to save the building, make sure it didn’t fall apart and deteriorate,” he said. “We wanted to make it a part of the neighborhood, like it used to be.”
Syracuse's famously skinny building at 537 N. Salina St. used to be home to Michael's, a popular pasta shop. Now, it's Francesca’s Bake House, where pastry chef Leslie Lisk makes desserts, breads and pasta for Francesca's Cucina next door.Katrina Tulloch
Since then, he said, the biggest challenge in taking over the building has been figuring out how to find room for everything they need.
“We’re still moving things around,” he said. “She’s still getting her bearings.”
The exterior has a striking look, with sharp black-and-white contrasts, a restored and painted wrought iron railing and original designs that include two gargoyles and an angel in relief on the facade.
“It took us a long time to come up with the look ... and the theme we wanted,” he said. They came up with a “1920s black and white New York City style bakery” theme that includes white subway tile and black grout.
For Angeloro, it all worked out nicely.
“As we got the opportunity to purchase the property, I got to thinking, ‘What would we do with it?” he said. “It seemed to make perfect sense since it was originally a pasta shop, that we could turn this into a bakery.”
Don Cazentre writes for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook.