Nía Bakery Awakens A New Pride In Colombia’s Culinary Bounty

Talia Richard-Carvajal helped launch Copenhagen’s award-winning Hart Bageri from the renowned kitchen Noma. But for a young baker overseeing what Vogue hailed as “perhaps the world’s best bakery,” the question remained: where do you go when you’ve already reached the top?

For Richard-Carvajal, the answer was to run full speed towards a thoroughly unexpected challenge: opening a world-class bakery in the vibrant city of Cartagena, Colombia on the nation’s Caribbean coast.

At Nía Bakery, she explores more than just the high-level contemplations of her most famous Hart Bageri bakes. Here, Colombia’s immense bounty of tropical fruits and flavors blooms far beyond what even the locals can imagine. Reaching deep into communities still emerging after decades of armed conflicts in Colombia, Nía Bakery’s multi-passionate team elevates ingredients once nearly lost to geopolitical struggle, transforming them into the highest level of pastry excellence.

The Making of Nía Bakery

Nía Bakery debuted in the heart of the colonial Cartagena last year, transforming a historic building in the heart of the UNESCO-protected Walled City into a bakery fit to best any in the region.

On the one hand, Cartagena made immediate sense for the project: it’s one of the buzziest destinations in the Americas, with all eyes on its recording-breaking growth and innovation. With its tempting tropical location, surrounded by lush, forest-covered mountains nourished by sea breezes, the potential for sourcing fresh ingredients is unmatched.

On the other hand, Cartagena’s Caribbean climate is exceedingly challenging for the exacting art of baking, where every variable must be measured and controlled for to ensure the highest quality and consistency.

“We knew we had to hold the highest standards, and that this project deserved doing well or not at all,” said Pierre Layolle, an experienced Colombian restaurateur and one of the diverse team of cofounders behind Nía Bakery, in an interview. “So we put in a lot of effort to retrofit the kitchen and dining space, and create the conditions to bring the vision to life, and it was worth it.”

On the Menu at Nía

The pastry case at Nía Bakery is nothing less than artistry, drawing a gaggle of visitors taking Instagram-worthy photos of the window display even before stepping inside. But if it’s true that you eat with your eyes first, just wait until you actually bite in.

Layolle recommends starting with the seasonal pastry, a highlight of the entire menu and encapsulates the Nía experience. “Currently, our seasonal pastry is a tart featuring cacao custard, which is a by-product of cacao. This way, we use the whole fruit in our kitchen,” says Layolle, “though we’ve also made custards during harvest season with fruits such as canistel, mabolo, loquat, and caimito, and fresh seasonal fruits always form a part of our finishing.”

First-Ever Flavors

Even with such a star-powered, high-quality baking operation, it’s what are estimated to be hundreds of fruits native to and cultivated in Colombia that take center stage at Nía. There are some classics on the menu, of course, like pineapple, mango and coconut, but half the fruits that formed part of the menu I had never heard of, even after having spent months living steps away from one of the largest fresh markets in nearby Medellín.

“We source fruits for our pastries, bakes, and brunch dishes that few Colombians will even know, let alone tourists and visitors,” Layolle explained, “and that’s by design.”

Layolle’s sister and fellow Nía Bakery cofounder, Nicole Layolle, first became acquainted with the country’s hidden bounty through community tourism projects in rural communities not far from Cartagena. Many of them had been cut off from the rest of the country for decades due to their location at the epicenter of some of Colombia’s worst zones of internal conflict.

Hers became a journey of “rediscovering the fruits, seeds, and flavors they have protected for generations,” said Layolle. To bring them together with Richard-Carvajal’s premier pastries became the heart of the Nía.

To source such novel ingredients, the Nía Bakery team works directly with the local suppliers who are bringing them to market for the first time. They also work directly with farmers in communities in Montes de María, a mountainous region south of Cartagena that was deeply scarred by Colombia’s internal conflict. In a region that was marred by massacres and rendered almost entirely inaccessible for decades due to armed conflict, the economic impact of a project like this can’t be overstated.

Reclaiming Colombia’s Bounty

One of the most interesting ingredients found on the menu at Nía Bakery must be mambe, an earthy powder that comes from the ground, toasted leaves of the coca plant. Traditionally used in the Colombian Amazon, where it is also known as ypadú, it has a polarizing past. At Nía, it features in a variety of menu items, from ice cream to lattes, offering a deeply earthy and richly herbaceous flavor it like nothing I’ve ever tried.

Retaking and elevating ingredients like these, which for so long have been overlooked, marginalized or even demeaned “showcases them, finally, with the pride they deserve,” says Layolle. Some of Cartagena’s renowned culinary institutions, like the award-winning restaurant Celele, are committed to doing the same, making this an exciting time for be eating in the Colombian Caribbean.

Up Next With Nía

For now, Nía Bakery has just one location in Cartagena, though from the looks of it, there is plenty of clamor for more. Even in the slower, stickier months of summer, I see guests grabbing pastries to go rather than wait on a table.

Layolle hints that there may be more in the works, maybe in mountainous Bogotá, though the behind-the-scenes push to further refine what already feels perfect is never-ending. After all, as Richard-Carvajal knows, it’s always more than just taking the formula elsewhere; it’s always a whole other ball game.