We told you a few weeks ago that Amanda Ivy, former sous chef at the 1836 Club, recently made the transition over to Old Mill Bread as their new executive chef. I decided to stop in to Old Mill to see how things were going with the new role.
Ivy, who is also a partner now at Old Mill, said early on that her focus early on was mostly working with and developing wholesale accounts. That still doesn’t mean that her and owner Andrew Graham have left the food in the cafe completely alone.
“We have a ton of regulars in here, and they love our food. We have no desire to take any of that away,” Graham says. “We do want to bring more things in and try new dishes out. There will be a lot of specials that we will be rotating through.”
One of the new specials, developed by Ivy, is a blackberry club sandwich. It is certainly something that stands out against the menu of more traditional sandwiches and wraps. They hope to continue to rotate in new specials and eventually add a few of those to the menu. Ivy echos Graham’s commitment to keeping their popular menu items, saying “Overall we are rotating in fresher ingredients when available, but aside from a swap here and there to a better version of an ingredient, not much is changing on the traditional lineup.”
One thing that is completely overhauled however is the in house desserts. Ivy quickly started rolling out entirely new desserts in the case, and is adding whole cake catering to their lineup.
We stopped in and found a good assortment of cheesecakes, cakes, and dessert oriented breads. Ivy’s flavors are some of the best from any baker in the state, and it is nice seeing her get to showcase her talent through Old Mill.
“I love the flexibility here. I get to try a lot of new ideas for both Old Mill and some of our wholesale accounts at restaurants around town,” Ivy says. “The team here has been fantastic. Even better they are committed to allowing me room to grow and learn new things outside of our cafe. It will make it so that we are always pulling in fresh ideas to the kitchen.”
Old Mill has steadily grown and increased in quality since Graham bought the 25 year old business back in 2014. Last year they expanded to add a River Market location in Ottenheimer Market Hall. It will be very interesting to see how the business continues to grow with the partnership with Amanda Ivy, it seems like a very strong next step.
