Wave Hill Breads Expands in Norwalk with New Cafe Featuring Pizza, Coffee, + More

When I sat down with Tim Topi to talk about his bakery’s expansion, and second location, this time in the form of a sit-down café, I jokingly told him that Wave Hill Breads could very well be the most mentioned place in the history of this website.

It may not actually be a joke, though. Countless restaurants swear by Wave Hill and prominently feature their sourdough or burger buns on their menu and others have a deal with Topi’s bakery for custom loaves or buns. Off the top of my head? Damon Sawyer’s 29 Markle Ct uses their brioche buns, Jeff Taibe of Taproot serves Wave Hill sourdough with either butter or pimento cheese and bacon jam, Josie & Tony’s has them custom bake semolina for their terrific sandwiches, and they bake milk buns for Cwispy Chkn’s tasty fried chicken sliders. I’m sure I’m leaving out dozens more, but you get the idea.

Since Topi took over the bakery in 2015 from original owners Margaret Sapir and Mitch Rapoport, who originally opened it in 2005, he’s lived up to his promise to progress what they started.

“I bought the bakery in 2015 with the idea that I would keep their standards and classics and move it forward,” Topi says. “I wanted something for myself, but this opportunity came up (to buy it). It took some time to negotiate, but they like me and I like them, so it happened.”

Pizza alla Romana come in many different ways here including potato and rosemary, mozzarella with red sauce, and burrata, prosciutto, and arugula.

Wave Hill’s pizza dough is meant to be light and easily digestible

Topi—who came to the states after honing his baking skills in Rome since he was 16 years old—landed in Bronxville with his wife, Angela, whom he met in Italy while she was working abroad. He’d of course put in applications all over the area, getting offers in New York City and beyond, ultimately ended up working for Sapir and Rapoport at Wave Hill, working his way up to their head baker. After two years, the bakery was his.

And forward the Wave Hill Breads’ brand he did. Not only can you find them in restaurants all over our area, but you’ll find their bread in local grocery stores and at almost every farmers market around.

Tim’s heir apparent, who was not camera shy at all!

More progress would come about a year and a half ago when Topi purchased a vacant space at 239 Westport Avenue, right across from Romanacci, where he had plans to open a full-service café where customers could dine in or simply sip on a latte and relax.

After nine months of construction, Wave Hill Breads Café became a reality.

The new cafe also doubles as a mini gourmet market with lots of imported pantry items.

Local products, too!

You might spy some wine and limoncello behind the counter, but for now, they’re using that for baking and cooking purposes. Topi is toying with the idea of selling pours, but he’s still undecided on whether they’ll go that route.

Only a mere mile from their wholesale bakery on High Street, the café won’t only carry some of their beautiful, crusty loaves of bread, but an expanded selection of pastries, breakfast and deli sandwiches, Trucillo coffee drinks, and Roman style pizza.

“The pizza is one of the focuses,” Topi says. “It’s a blend of King Arthur 00, rice flour, durum. That’s the recipe for success. Minimum 24-hour fermentation, but 72 hours maximum. The flavor is better at 24 hours, more sour at 48, but 24 is the sweet spot we found, and 100 percent hydration. My favorite is the potato pizza. I eat it all the time in Italy.”

Topi’s other plans for the café that has a few rooms in the back are bread and pizza making classes, opportunities to host catered parties or business meetings, and possible special private dining events. Him and his team of bakers are also experimenting with having even more café only exclusives, too.

“We can mostly bake everything here that we bake in the original bakery except sliced breads and sourdough miche,” he says. “We have fryers here, so I want to make something different like a fried croissant.”

Stay tuned for all of that, and when you stop by, say “hi” to Tim, who jokes, “I tell people that I live in Norwalk, but I sleep in Darien. I just want everyone around here to make good stuff and I want my business to be an asset to the community.”

239 Westport Avenue, Norwalk
wavehillbreads.com