Tatte Bakery and Cafe

Tatte Bakery and Cafe was founded by Tzurit Or in Boston in 2012, where the Israeli-born pastry chef brought the Middle Eastern bakery tradition to the Cambridge cafe market. The name Tatte is the Yiddish word for father, which Or chose in honor of her father’s memory, and the bakery’s aesthetic, which combines the Israeli and Middle Eastern food tradition with the European bakery format, has been among the most original in the American cafe market since Tatte’s opening.

The shakshuka that Tatte serves, the North African and Israeli egg preparation in which eggs are poached directly in a spiced tomato and pepper sauce and served bubbling in the cast iron pan, is the dish that has done the most to establish Tatte’s reputation beyond the bakery items. Shakshuka in the Israeli breakfast and brunch tradition is the egg preparation that is served in the same context that the American brunch uses eggs Benedict: as the late morning meal that is simultaneously casual and substantial. Georgetown’s brunch culture has found in Tatte’s shakshuka a preparation that provides a different register from the standard American egg preparations that the M Street brunch restaurants specialize in.

The malawach, which is the Yemenite Jewish flatbread that is made from layers of dough cooked in butter until the exterior is crispy and the interior is flaky, is among the preparations that most directly express the Middle Eastern Jewish food tradition that Tatte represents. The malawach served with the grated tomato sauce and the hard-boiled egg is the Yemenite breakfast that has become a Tel Aviv brunch staple.

The babka, the Eastern European Jewish yeasted cake with the chocolate or cinnamon filling that is twisted through the dough in the lamination, is among the most popular bakery items at Tatte.

Hours run from 7am weekdays and 8am on weekends. The Tatte aesthetic, which uses the visual language of the Mediterranean bazaar and the Middle Eastern home kitchen, has been the brand’s most distinctive element in the Boston and DC markets where the brand has expanded: the warmth of the materials, the abundance of the pastry display, and the integration of the savory Israeli food with the pastry program create a cafe environment that is immediately distinctive from both the American chain cafe and the standard European-style coffee shop. The Georgetown Wisconsin Avenue location at 1545 serves the commercial section between the main boutique cluster and the upper residential-commercial block, accessible from the Georgetown University campus direction and from the main commercial corridor below. The Israeli breakfast tradition that Tatte’s savory food program draws from is organized around the communal table: the Israeli breakfast includes the salads, the cheeses, the eggs, and the breads that the Mediterranean morning meal has always provided, served in the generous portions that the Israeli hospitality tradition maintains. For the Georgetown brunch customer who wants a savory morning meal that is neither the American eggs-and-bacon format nor the French pastry breakfast, Tatte’s Israeli-inspired program provides the alternative. Hours run from 7am weekdays and 8am weekends.