It took seven years for the bagel business that baker Alex Melamy started in his basement to get a full-fledged shop, but it finally opened this weekend.
There’s something about Cleo Bagels, the new neighborhood bagel shop just off West Philly’s Cedar Park, that feels peaceful With morning light streaming through the big front window and calming shades of peach and mint green on the walls, you feel your jaw unclench, your shoulders relax. The backyard is a flower-filled brick patio where you can enjoy your bagel, coated top and bottom with toasty seeds, and sip a life-giving iced coffee away from the bustle of Baltimore Avenue.
As demand outstripped the capacity of his home kitchen, Malamy began hauling a granny cart of gear and ingredients on the trolley in the middle of the night to prep in borrowed kitchens on the Penn campus. He continually tweaked his recipe—a shorter proof, a longer bake, a new technique for making toppings stick.“Alex is such a nerd about dough, and it shows,” said Sarah Thompson, a fellow West Philly baker who sells biscuits under the name. “He’s so intentional with everything he does.
Not long after his surgery, Malamy signed a lease for the space at 5013 Baltimore Avenue—which turned out to be the long-boarded-up home of the erstwhile Danger Danger Gallery, a DIY music venue where Malamy attended punk shows back in the late aughts.
Cleo Bagels opened its doors last weekend with bagels—hand-rolled to create a nautilus-like swirl, baked to a rich, burnished brown, with a chewy yet light interior—pillowy bialys, and sweets like the Apple Thing, a tender apple muffin dunked in butter and rolled in cinnamon sugar, plus Lancaster-based Necessary Coffee and kombucha from Movement Labs. For now, they’re open on weekends only, with plans to expand the schedule in the near future.
There are also breakfast sandwiches, built around prep-friendly hard-boiled eggs—mashed into a herby, cornichon-studded egg salad or steeped in soy and sliced to top what may be Malamy’s most intriguing creation: the Ramen Thing, spread with togarashi mayo and filled with ramen add-ins like bamboo shoots, scallions, crispy seaweed, and pickled ginger.
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