James Beard Award-winning baker Chad Robertson is opening an all-day bakery and café called Altbau in Williamsburg at 184 North 8th Street, a large warehouse building that was previously home to a martial arts academy.

Robertson is an industry veteran with over three decades of experience with artisanal bread production and a co-founder of San Francisco’s Tartine, a wildly-popular bakery that exploded into a chain with 17 locations in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Seoul.

Now, Robertson has his sights set on the East Coast. He relocated to Brooklyn, and a couple of blocks from his apartment, he found “a gorgeous old building he’s restored down to its reclaimed 1800s walnut floors.”

In a bonus episode of Things Bakers Know: The King Arthur Baking Podcast, Robertson confirmed the move and said that Altbau will open in Brooklyn this summer.

Robertson originally thought he was opening a small sourdough pizza place, but then, he and his investors found the 7,500-square-foot building on North 8th Street and fell in love. It was much bigger than they envisioned, but they decided to buy it anyway and then renovated it from top to bottom, while keeping the spirit of the original building intact. 

The building itself inspired the establishment’s name; Altbau is German for “old building.”

“I’m kind of an old building myself,” Roberston joked. He said his partner spends a lot of time in Berlin and loves the word. Plus, he likes that it’s a “little foreign,” but still “easy to pronounce” similar to the name of his first spot Tartine. 

Altbau will be a bakery and café with handcrafted breads, pastries, and light fare made primarily with locally-sourced, organic ingredients.

“It’s an all-day café and bakery thing on the ground floor, what you might expect, although I’m really trying not to repeat anything I’ve done before,” Robertson said.

“I want to keep it in the sweet spot where people come a few days a week and get staples, but I want to add to the community.”

With this new project, the baker is trying to “make a deliberate break from the stuff that made him famous.” He wants to have fun with bread and the diversity of grain world, he explained on the podcast.

“We’ll make delicious food all day long,” he said, highlighting that he and the team will do small batch baking in real time.

Altbau’s upstairs will host culinary classes and community events. Hosting classes is something that Robertson has done before, but not in this capacity with a dedicated space.

“The part I’m most excited about is upstairs is where we built a kitchen. It’s a teaching space where I can host friends, Robertson said, adding that it’s “the most fun thing.”

It’s also worth noting that a new liquor license application was submitted for Altbau’s address alongside a permit for live music and small performances with 1-5 musicians.