Small Town Summer: Ciao! A Bakery

As a large commuter city, where my internship is, Harrisburg, PA has a lot of restaurants and shops. And going on my last week, I haven’t even dented the surface of these spots.

Fortunately, one of the spots I have visited is Ciao! A Bakery on Chestnut Street in Harrisburg. 

Ciao! is the bakery attached to Bricco, the really posh Italian/Mediterranean restaurant in the city. I drove past the restaurant and the bakery it many times on my way to and from the train station coming or going to Philadelphia.

So finally during our lunch hour, my mom and I decided to walk from our respective offices to the bakery. Of course, we did this before we had lunch, so we bought a lot. When we arrived both of our eyes got big.

The bakery is a cute, small space with fresh breads, pastries, sweets, coffee, and an espresso/smoothie menu that rivals your average coffee shop. Yet, this isn’t a “hang-out bakery.”

One table, two chairs, this is definitely a run, then eat kind of place. That fact by no means counts against this little bakery.

To say that the treats we took with us were good, is a understatement. The best way to describe Ciao! is as “a grown-up bakery.”

Grown up desserts, grown up tastes. Pecan bars, Lemon bars, Petit Fours, Pain à Chocolats, fruit tarts, the list goes on.

They have monthly gourmet cupcakes where customers can enter clever names. This this months’ cupcake is entitled, “Limey Bastard.” A vanilla cupcake with key lime frosting and graham cracker crumbs. I would have called this “Lim’a Bean” or “Key Lime Dream,” but eh, apparently the response has been positive.

We picked up several goodies:

one pecan bar

one lemon bar

one mini-dark chocolate cupcake

And one cream cheese brownie that was… beyond…words… delicious, near fudgy, words.

Of course we waited about 20 minutes until we returned to my mother’s office and promptly opened all of the treats and ate some. But not all of the delicious treats. We had to share with Aaron who was at home.

We also picked up to beautiful loafs of olive bread that we promptly ate for dinner and several meals after. It was the most delicious and cheapest olive bread we have found yet.

Review:

I love bakeries, and I am definitely going to back to Ciao! for my bakery needs and treats. We were not disappointed by one of our picks, our only mistake was not getting enough. The treats are consistently priced between $2-4 and make a great breakfast or after lunch indulgence. They also have a wide variety of breakfast foods such as croissants, muffins, scones, coffee, etc. And of course desserts, and even truffles.

If you ever find yourself in this neck of the woods, check out Ciao!

I’m definitely coming back soon.

Enjoy!

Love,

The College Cuisiner