Asaro Bakery and Cafe — Restaurant in Cambridge

On paper, this should be a lower rating - most of the items I had didn't blown me away. But I LOVED the customer service and overall vibes in this place and they ultimately carried the day. My top-tier chum who literally went to the school of hospitality and I had an Airbnb less than a block away, and when it turned out we somehow got our second Airbnb in a row without actual coffee (the world is truly going to hell in a handbasket) it didn't end up mattering too much.

I ended up coming by both mornings we were here (last Saturday and Sunday), because of proximity and also a convenient opening time of 7am (as an unapologetic hardcore morning person, it's hard to find coffee establishments open before 8am when I'm chomping at the bit to start my day's adventures). There were customers on the premises on the two visits but it wasn't overwhelming. A big reason for that is the interior is pretty spacious with a decent seating area to the left of the entrance, and it's just a pleasant atmosphere - there's a lot of white painted exposed brick with what look to be subtle homages to European cafes. I liked it a lot and was really comfortable in here.

Caffeine is important so I ordered vanilla lattes on each visit, and also got their yogurt parfait (hard to eat quasi-healthy on a trip like this), a brown butter chocolate chip cookie and a broccoli cheese Danish or something very equivalent. The cookie was great - I'd like to see more brown butter usage on the pastry landscape going forward. It's a big cookie so it took a few visits to our temporary kitchen to finish it off. The parfait was okay; it had more quinoa/chia/seed vibes than the standard granola I'm used to, but my biggest issue was that the serving size of the granola mix dwarfed the yogurt so most of the bites were overwhelming missing some crunch. I would double the size of the accompanying mix. The only real miss for me was the Danish and I'm willing to acknowledge it was at least partially a taste/personal palate issue more so than anything else. In hindsight, I think I at least should have gotten that heated up - the cheese seemed overwhelming tangy, if that makes sense, and I think an overall warmer pastry would have negated the extreme tastes for me.

The service was fantastic. It took a minute or so to get my bearings when I first walked in (trying to figure out where to order, where all of the relevant drinks/items I might be interested in were, etc.), but every employee I encountered was very friendly and welcoming. It made a significant impression and was easily the main reason I came back with my chum the next morning. We love a good intangible.

I don't know the next time I'll be in the area (we forgot to reenact a few scenes from Good Will Hunting, so you never know), but I'm making this a stop again...

I usually don’t write reviews but after what I witnessed earlier today I felt like I needed to. As someone who was excited to try the new local bakery/coffee shop I found the coffee to be pretty average. I would’ve liked to used this spot as a study area or hangout with friends but what stunned me was the conversation between the employee and managers at the time. The way the managers handled and talked to whom I’m guessing to be an employee I found to be incredibly unprofessional, especially for a new opened business. As a former worker in the restaurant industry there is a time and place for these conversations to take place and this was DEFINITELY not one of those. Managers should understand how to vocalize any concerns without making a scene in front of their customers, which includes yelling. If there were any differences between the parties then the conversation should’ve been in private. Embarrassing your employee for your start up of a business is NOT appealing. Overall experience has been affected and I do not intend of revisiting,...

Snob-fest. They are from Israel but their food is not 'clean' like the wonderful kosher bakeries of old school Isrealis. Definitely not a neighborhood feel but probably appeals to 'new' Cambridge and Harvard culture. However with what I've read in other reviews about managers treatment of employees in public I doubt of this place will last that long. It could be because the manager is part of the family who owns the bakery and that creates an imbalance of power with workers. Oh well Cambridge brought it on themselves by forcing Darwin's out due to protests and marches demanding the ridiculous idea of baristas having unions.

Everything will go back to normal once people start focusing on THE FOOD and THE BEVERAGE quality instead of politics, money and status. Wouldn't that be nice. Just .. food and a simple atmosphere. Not atmosphere designed to distract from the quality...