Award-winning Hill bakery gets its just desserts

by ED MAHON

Five-year-old Emmett Deicther ran around The Night Kitchen Bakery, staring at luscious desserts before getting distracted by each new creamy one. His mother, Nancy LeClair, a former Chestnut Hill resident who comes to the bakery whenever she gets a chance, already made up her mind: lemon bars. But she understood why Emmett was having so much trouble. "Everything is so good. Everything."

Emmett and his mother are not the only ones who love the bakery's desserts. The bakery recently won "Best Dessert" in Philadelphia Magazine's annual "Best of Philly" issue. It's not the first time the bakery won an award -- in 2002 they won the "Best Brownie" award -- but this victory tastes especially sweet because it was in the readers' choice category. Normally, the editors of the magazine decide.

What also makes this prize even tastier is that it was a surprise (a nice surprise, not the kind of surprise where you get hit in the face with a pie). Amy Edelman first heard she won the award when a friend's mother called. Normally, Philadelphia Magazine tells the winners ahead of time, but for whatever reason, Amy didn't get a phone call.

Amy owns the store at 7725 Germantown Ave. with her husband John Millard. And in addition to the bonds of matrimony, the two share a passion for cooking. They met in 2000, when Amy placed a personal ad on Yahoo. Her e-mail address caught the eye of John because it had "chef" in the title. They married in 2002, and John started working at Night Kitchen shortly after that.

Night Kitchen has been in Chestnut Hill since 1983, but Amy bought it in 2000. She became interested in baking while in culinary school in 1988.
"I like the pace of it, and the creativity. It's a little less frenetic," she said.

Her husband interrupted, saying that in baking there's "less yelling, less screaming, less pans flying around. You're less likely to get hit in the hand." Amy laughed and added, "You sweat a little less." But not everything in the baking world is as easy as pie.

Pastry chef Alexandra Kojawa rarely takes breaks, and she has to work on holidays. But the biggest problem? "Weight gain."

"When you first start at a place you have to expect to gain five to 10 pounds because you're trying everything," Alexandra said. "It's important to be able to describe the product to the customer."

Also, cakes at the Night Kitchen, which are all made from scratch, go through a variety of processes, including baking, icing, decorating, filling and cutting the cake. "The stages are more involved because we make everything from scratch," Alexandra said.

Thirty minutes into the interview with Alexandra, she had to put a cake back in the fridge because the butter was melting, despite the fan blowing on it. Many places don't use fresh butter. "When we make lemon curd cake, we don't buy lemon juice, we buy 30 lemons," she said. But the difficulties don't compare to the benefits which are "Quality, quality, quality," said Alexandra, "and taste."

And Alexandra should know about desserts. The Mt. Airy native spent a year after high school working in France -- the crème de la crème of dessert countries. She also traveled to other countries, and "the thing I was most interested in when I visited those countries was the food," she said. While the fancy French desserts always have a special place in Alexandra's heart -- I mean stomach -- she likes "homemade retro American" the best.

The size of the place also has a homey feel to it. There are only two small rooms in the back, in which all the desserts for not only this store, but also two other Night Kitchens, are made. Amy and John are the sole drivers, keeping each dessert in an insulated bag to keep them cool as the drivers go to two other stores in Doylestown and Narberth. But despite these difficulties, "We're such a small place. And we want to stay small." And even though they don't have the biggest staff, when a cake crisis comes, they're more than ready.

A few Sundays ago, a caterer called saying they had a wedding in four hours, and they had everything: the bride, the groom, the rings, the annoying relatives. But no cake. Usually, there's a 24-hour policy for orders, and for most wedding cakes, the couple calls six months in advance. But Alexandra and the rest of the crew were able to bake a cake in almost record time.

It's this example of customer service that explains why so many people would vote for them in "Best of Philly." Alexandra credits their success to loyal customers, adding "some who come every year for their birthdays and some who come every day for their breakfast."

She also credited the great staff, including Cheryl Rohrback, the head baker, who has worked with Amy for eight years.

Changes made by Amy, who grew up in Mt. Airy, have also helped. Amy expanded the baked goods selection to also target smaller groups by offering more tarts and individual items. They still make large cakes, which serve anywhere from 30 to 300 people.

On the days when the phone rings non-stop with orders -- especially during the busy season of September through July -- Alexandra doesn't do much baking at home. Besides being exhausted from cooking, it's also hard to go back to cooking with regular tools, once you've used professional ones. "Cooks are notorious for eating horribly," said Alexandra, who is also married to a chef.

One person who might love desserts too much, but who is definitely not eating horribly is five-year-old Emmett, who, after careful deliberation, made a decision. Instead of the mocha mousse cake, which Amy said is the most popular, Emmett opted for a chocolate cup cake that has both chocolate and vanilla frosting, which his mother said is "for those who can't decide."

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