Former pop-up Relic Bakery opens first restaurant space in East Village

On March 16, 2020, thousands of San Diego restaurant workers lost their jobs when COVID-19 health orders forced hundreds of sit-down restaurants to indefinitely close their doors. But Samantha Bird, who was laid off from her job as pastry chef for Milles Fleurs restaurant in Rancho Santa Fe, didn’t stay idle for long.

On her first day out of work, she whipped up a batch of cardamom buns in her North Park apartment and launched an independent bakery business. Five-and-a-half years later, that enterprise has grown into Relic Bakery & Kitchen, which soft-opened Oct. 15 in its first full-service restaurant/bakery space in San Diego’s East Village.

Over the years, Bird and chef Derek Hadden, her partner in both life and work, have nurtured and grown the business from a home-based cottage operation, to a ghost kitchen in the Miramar area that supplied up to 15 coffee shop accounts, to a 2022-launched weekly Sunday pop-up that drew ever-growing crowds, thanks to their more than 22,500 Instagram followers.

The North Park couple met in 2017 in the kitchen at Herb & Wood restaurant in Little Italy, where Bird was head baker and Hadden was a rising chef, whose resume now includes cooking positions at Herb & Sea, Juniper & Ivy and Michelin three-star Addison by William Bradley. During the pandemic, Hadden continued cooking at restaurants and helping out Bird when time allowed. But as Bird’s business grew, she taught Hadden the pastry arts and eventually he was able to come aboard full-time.

The result of their culinary collaboration is a unique menu of pastries that include traditional sweet options like pain au chocolate, kouign-amann and cinnamon rolls, and an ever-changing  variety of savory pastries that incorporate herbs, spices, roasted vegetables and meaty proteins like pork ragu, duck fat and speck ham from local farms like Girl & Dug, J.R. Organics and Thompson Heritage Ranch.

“You see stuff you wouldn’t normally see on a pastry like a cassoulet or shepherd’s pie, which translates to fun,” Hadden said. “I think with both our minds together, it makes for a fun seasonal menu.”

When Bird first started her busines in 2020, she called it Relic Bageri, a tribute to the time she spent learning wood-fired bread-making skills at Meyers Bageri in Copenhagen 10 years ago. Two years later, she returned to Europe and spent 12 months working at bakeries in the Czech Republic and France.

“I was inspired by the tradition of European bakeries on every corner, making things fresh for people who would go a couple time a week for their bread and rolls,” Bird said. “I liked how bakeries were integrated into the culture and neighborhoods. That’s something that has been missing from the San Diego food scene.”

For now, Relic Bakery has a small bread program, but Bird said she hopes to grow that part of the business as the neighborhood around her 15th Street business continues to develop. They’re now baking all their own pastries and sandwich breads, and they’re also producing a few varieties of loaves to go. Their breads are made with fresh-milled organic flour from Central Milling.

While Relic is in its soft-opening phase, the hours are limited to 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesdays-Sundays. Initially, they’re focusing on their pastry and coffee programs, along with serving a handful of plated breakfast sandwiches and, for lunch, house-roasted turkey and chicken curry salad sandwiches and an organic salad.

To spotlight their wine program in future months, they’ll be adding a happy hour program from 3 to 7 p.m. and Bird also hopes to add some plated desserts to the menu. Next year, they plan to expand their patio seating area and introduce dinner service.

Hadden’s favorite lunch menu item, the Mary’s Chicken Roulade, is an example of the type of more elevated plated dishes he’d like to introduce as business grows. It features a five-ounce roll of Mary’s organic chicken thigh, stuffed with a chicken mousseline and served with golden thread mushrooms, Swiss chard, butter-poached pearl onions, Parmesan crisps and red wine chicken demi sauce.

Bird said she and Hadden been pleased with the customer traffic in the opening weeks. The visitors are a mix of former customers from the weekly pop-ups, Instagram followers who have been patiently waiting for the restaurant to open and new customers who live and work in the East Village area.

“It’s exciting to be a little neighborhood spot for people who live nearby to come for breakfast or lunch or dinner and untilize the space as an all-day operation,” Bird said.

Relic Bakery & Kitchen

When: 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesdays-Sundays

Where: 845 15th St., San Diego

Online: relicbakery.com, instagram.com/relicbakery/