Culture & Community | Arts & Culture | Westville | Food Business | Culinary Arts | Westville Renaissance Arts (WRVA)
Malby Rojas in her basement bakery. She is currently looking for her first brick-and-mortar storefront. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Malby Rojas pulled a loaf of country bread out of the oven, slipping it into a bag. She tapped the back, listening for a certain, steady thump, then pressed her thumbs gently into the crackly, domed top. The crust gave way for a moment, then sprang back. The loaf, still warm, rested snugly in her arms. Then she smiled, and passed it forward like an offering.
“I listen to the bread, do it by feel,” she said. “Every detail counts.”
Originally from Caracas and Miranda, Venezuela, Rojas is the owner of Malby’s Pastries, a home bakery in upper Westville that she is hoping to expand into a brick-and-mortar storefront in the next year. After years of working in bakeries and restaurants across the country, she’s taken this year to grow her own culinary footprint, with an emphasis on naturally fermented breads and baked goods.
“I like pastries. I like desserts,” she said. “But from home, I prefer making bread because it’s so simple. You just need your hands and flour, water, salt.”
Rojas’ career began seven years ago in Miami, after she immigrated to the U.S. to escape political and economic tumult in Venezuela. Growing up, her parents had done most of the cooking, exposing her to breads and pastries without ever expecting that they would one day become her world. In college at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, she studied biology and accounting, more taken with the science of living things and numbers than cuisine.
When she graduated, Rojas worked a string of jobs—managing go-karts, assisting at a law office, phone banking for various causes. But she could feel Venezuela barreling towards an economic breaking point, precipitated in part by the election of President Nicolás Maduro in 2013. When she was 24, “the situation in my country brought me here,” she said. She didn’t know it then, but a job in a bakery was about to change her life.
As a newcomer to Miami, she landed at Panna, a bakery franchise specializing in Colombian and Venezuelan food. There, she learned to make golden brown, crescent-shaped cachitos, a Venezuelan breakfast food stuffed with cheese or meat, as well as Colombian pan de bono and other fresh and yeasted breads.
It was an unexpected culinary launchpad. After a year in Miami, Rojas made her way to Chicago, where she had the chance to work alongside chef Saúl Román at Artengo, an Argentine restaurant in the Sunnyside neighborhood of East Chicago. After seeing how abusive some kitchens could be—yes, she’s obsessed with The Bear, and she can likely best Marcus Brooks’ chocolate cake any day of the week—Román was a revelation.
“He was super patient,” she said. With his mentorship, she grew as a chef, learning her way around the Windy City’s culinary scene when she wasn’t in the thick of cooking herself. Outside of work, she met the woman who would become her wife, Dr. Karla Tejada Arias. In New Haven, Arias works in gerontology and internal medicine at Fair Haven Community Health Care and as Rojas’ de facto marketing assistant.
Four years ago, that was still a pastry pipe dream. In Artengo’s kitchen, Rojas mastered the ballet of precision and experiment, moving up from line cook to pastry chef in just a year. She loved making pastries, she said—but it was the idea of fresh and healthy bread that she always came back to.
“I always had in my head about the proofing,” she remembered. When the Covid-19 pandemic shuttered food businesses across the country, she began to read about bread, building a collection of books that taught her, step by step, how to make loaves that were crackly yet soft, that had craggy, copper- and cinnamon-colored crusts and delicate, generous air pockets after a perfect knead.
She kept studying as she and Arias made the move to Boston, marrying in Cambridge before Arias’ work brought them ultimately to the Elm City.
The more she baked, the more she developed her own style. Not a fan of commercial yeast—she doesn’t like the flavor—Rojas perfected a country loaf with a mix of whole wheat and bread flours and water that, under the right conditions, started with a natural fermentation process and ended in a warm, just-tangy loaf that had heft but not heaviness.She grew her wheelhouse, adding airy baguettes, humble multigrain loaves, and sweet treats like brioche and babka.
Dr. Laura Corona, who first met Rojas during her time in Chicago, noted what a pleasure it has been to watch her grow as a baker. When the two first met, Rojas was still working at Artengo, and “she was kind of experimenting with different things,” Corona remembered. Then Covid-19 hit, sending the restaurant industry into crisis mode. Rojas began making “these tiny little lemon pies,” adding bright, sweet bursts to months that seemed isolating and dark.
Corona, who was working in internal medicine, was an instant fan. After trying them, she asked Rojas if she could make 20 of them, so Corona could bring them into work as a special treat for her colleagues. As they devoured the pies, Corona became a Malby’s Pastries devotee. On her trips to Connecticut--so far, she’s averaged twice a year--she picks up two loves, slices them, and then puts the bread in the freezer, allowing herself a single slice per day to make it last.
In addition to the bread, she had high praise for Rojas’ cookies, including peanut butter cookies rolled into perfect, small spheres.
“She’s almost like a different pastry chef compared to the one I met [in Chicago],” she said, adding that she’s always been amazed at Rojas’ ability to learn. “The way she's so particular about her desserts and bread, you would think this is a person who has been doing this for 30 years. Every time I visit her, she makes something for me and it just gets better and better and better.”
In 2021, Rojas and Arias made the move to New Haven. As the two settled into life in the Elm City, Rojas began working as a pastry chef at the Blake Hotel, where the now-shuttered restaurant Hamilton Park (it is now Siena Ristorante, which also has outposts in Stamford and Norwalk) was thriving. Then last summer, she spotted a job opening for a pastry sous chef at Gioia, an Italian-inspired restaurant that was opening on Wooster Street in the fall.
The chance to work on a new menu excited her. After landing the job, she helped a growing team build out Gioia’s dessert offerings, from its rotating, seasonal gelato to panna cotta (currently, it has burnt honey and hints of mandarin orange, as well as sesame brittle) and tiramisu dusted with an espresso crunch.
The bread, in this reporter's kitchen.
Chef Avi Szapiro, who opened the restaurant alongside Tim Cabral in October, praised her attention to detail and creativity in the kitchen. In the restaurant, “there's a lot of exploration and iteration” that goes into recipe development, he said. Rojas became instrumental to that process. “She's very good at what she does.”
“It was great!” he added of working with her. “Malby is a very detail oriented person, very technical, very savvy when it comes to what she does. When I hired her, I thought she would bring tremendous value to the organization, and she did.”
He also knew, as she did, that she wanted to go into business for herself. So when she announced she was leaving in December, Szapiro was crestfallen—and also wanted to know how the restaurant could help her fledgling career. Gioia now carries her bread in its market and uses it in several of its dishes.
“At the beginning, we were like, ‘How are we going to find a replacement that is as insightful as hardworking as Malby?” he remembered. “But at the same time, how can you not support someone like that and want to see her succeed?”
Back in Westville, Rojas began building out a small batch bakery that operates under a cottage food license. With Arias’ support, she took over the couple’s basement, moving workout equipment and storage for bread ovens, counter space, and shelving units stacked neatly with baking equipment. She rearranged her schedule, waking up at 4 a.m. to warm the oven for two hours before baking.
There was still the issue of building a customer base. By word of mouth alone, Rojas has cultivated a devoted group of weekly followers who get home delivery or pick up at her place in Westville. Then several weeks ago, she and Arias piloted a pop-up, simply titled “Bread at the Corner,” at the corner of Maplewood and Hemlock Roads.
“I told Karla, 'Nobody is gonna show up to this,’” Rojas remembered.She was convinced it was going to be a bust; Arias encouraged her to try it anyway. She sold out in 20 minutes.
“Malby is a baker who genuinely bakes from her heart, and not only does that show with the baking, it shows with the customers,” said Paola Perez, who has become a weekly customer. Each week, Perez makes the 40-minute commute from Madison for a country loaf, which she has come to love as the perfect bread. It’s usually gone within three days.
“Three days tops,” she added with a laugh, describing the joy of making a sandwich that has the perfect balance of sourdough bread and sandwich ingredients.
"It's not too dry, but it's also still crunchy,” she said.” And not too bready. It provides a good balance.”
"Bread on the Corner” marked the start of a busy summer season. When Rojas isn’t baking or making bread deliveries, she and Arias are looking for a storefront, a journey that has taken them into kitchens and empty restaurant spaces across the city. Each week, she also sells baked goods at the Orange Community Farmers’ Market, which runs from 3:30 to 7 p.m. each Thursday.
She’s also growing her repertoire. In addition to sweet and savory brioche buns, baguette, multigrain bread and custom cakes (Szapiro had high praise for these, describing in detail a cheetah-themed confection that she whipped up for his daughter’s birthday), she is constantly experimenting, with new spins on brioche and focaccia that include olives, fresh herbs, and cardamom.
Her weekly menu is a rotating door of sweet and savory: brioche buns sprinkled with sugar or sesame seeds, challah the color of brown butter, focaccia with tomatoes and fresh herbs pressed gently into the dough, so pretty it’s hard to eat.
But her signature bread, a sourdough country loaf that is chewy but not dense, is the star of the show. Made over hours of proofing and kneading, it is the kind of quiet, comestible triumph that needs no gussying up, the perfect soup sopper or companion to an oil-drizzled dip (just please don’t pair it with something like nacho cheese or grocery store guac, that feels downright disrespectful) or simply a midday snack on its own.
A visit to Rojas’ home makes it easy to see why. On a recent Friday morning, she floated through her basement-turned-bakery, making her way to four tubs of dough that sat quietly on a cleaned, long counter she built herself earlier this year. She dipped her hands into a four-quart pitcher of water, methodical as a surgeon preparing to scrub in. A dainty container of olive oil sat to the side.
“I have to fold,” she explained as she gently worked the dough, lifting it so gingerly she might have been holding a baby. Because bread dough is so sensitive to the weather, she monitors the temperature of the room, the water, and the dough, making small changes depending on the season. If she doesn’t get it right, the rise changes, and not for the better. “It’s a science.”
Already, she had been awake for over five hours, timing her kneads on a watch that seemed to always be counting down to something. Upstairs, her cat Rotax padded across the floor, unaware of the alchemy taking place below. She loves the deceptive simplicity of bread, she said—it requires only a few ingredients, but can be a challenge to get exactly right.
“I spend all day here,” she said with a smile, looking around as the smell of fresh bread and fermenting dough filled the room. When she’s not in her bakery lair, she and Arias are on the hunt for a kitchen spaces, looking for a storefront with ovens specifically tailored to bread (most places have convection ovens, and Rojas needs what is called a deck oven).
Her vision, Rojas said, is a small cafe-bakery with a bread counter and pastry case with brioche, cinnamon buns, French and Latin pastries. Eventually, she’d like to add brunch with tartines and coffee, so that customers can stay and linger a while. While she wants to keep her business in Westville, she’s open to anywhere in the city.
“I think I owe this to New Haven,” she said. “I would like to start here, in Westville. I’ve heard from people [in the neighborhood] that they need a bakery.”
Westville Village Renaissance Alliance (WVRA) Executive Director Lizzy Donius, who met Rojas earlier this year, said she is rooting for the chef and baker to find a place in New Haven, and would be especially excited to keep her business in the a neighborhood known for quirky, creative and independent shop owners.
“I’m so excited about Malby and her bakery,” she said. “When they [business owners] can’t find space, that’s really distressing … I want to do everything I can to help them grow their business. I would love for tem to grow into whatever they want to.”
She remembered meeting Rojas on a recent weekday, and tasting a loaf that she’d brought along to the meeting. Twenty-five minutes and a few curious Westvillians later, the loaf had been devoured. “It is so good,” she said of Rojas’ bread. “I think what all of us can do is just spread the good word.”