Biga Sarona: Italian Sourdough Inside the Templer Park

The smell of warm semolina hits you before the building does. You walk in from Eliezer Kaplan Street, push past a row of restored stone houses with red tile roofs, and Biga reveals itself as a long, low pavilion opening onto the lawn at the heart of Sarona Park. A wood and tile counter at the front carries a parade of country loaves, ciabatta, focaccia squares glistening with rosemary oil, and a row of croissants the color of toasted hazelnuts. Behind it the espresso machine works without pause. On a Tuesday at 09:30 the room is already half full; by 11:00 the garden tables outside will be the only seats left.

Biga is a chain, but the Sarona branch is the brand at its most expressive. The dining room is built around an open bakery: a glass front oven with a row of proofing baskets behind it, sacks of flour stacked along one wall, a baker in a white apron sliding peels in and out at a steady rhythm. The pre fermented dough that gives the chain its name, biga in Italian, is the long ferment that makes ciabatta sing, and the team uses it across most of the bread program. The crumb is open and irregular, the crust crackles when you tear it, and the bread arrives at the table still releasing steam.