Sidewalk Citizen Bakery

Sidewalk Citizen's specialty is long fermentation, hand made sourdough bread made from local organic flour. Inspired by the bustling street foods of Israel, the sun drenched markets of the Levant region and the vast outdoors of the surrounding mountains and prairies. The food combines Mediterranean flavours with local ingredients. The bakery co-exhists in the seam between tradition and innovation, to preserve and invigorate centuries-old methods while creating exciting new flavour combinations. Like going on an adventure but remembering you have home to return to. Sidewalk Citizen Bakery is committed to the city of Calgary, the local food producers, food consumers, the artists and Calgary's sidewalks. The bakery was founded by Aviv Freid in 2009. Aviv holds a Physics Honours Degree and Masters in Bio-medical Engineering from the University of Calgary. He turned down a finance to pursue his passion and become an artisan baker. Self-taught, he later trained in Vermont at King Arthurs Flour with Jeffery Hamelman and in Paris with the famed sourdough baker, Jean-Luc Poujauran. In March 2010, Aviv went on a learning expedition during which he baked sourdough bread in a small bakery run by Tengboche Monastery, the highest Tibetan Monastery in Nepal and in the Everest Base Camp. Recently Aviv Fried baked at San Francisco Tartine Bakery and at Ottolenghi in London, UK. From delivering bread on bicycle in a one-person operation, the bakery slowly grew and is now located in the East Village where it employs 40 people who makes fresh pastries and bread from scratch from local ingredients. In 2011, Aviv was chosen for Calgary’s Top 40 Under 40. The bakery has been featured in numerous articles in local, national and international publications.