A baker’s ode to Chile opens in downtown Ambler

Compared with other Latin American communities in the region, the Chilean crowd is quite small — by many estimates, in the low thousands.

But Cote Tapia-Marmugi knows that this is a passionate audience eager to get a taste of the homeland 5,000 miles away.

When she was about 10, Tapia-Marmugi’s family emigrated from Santiago to Westchester County, N.Y., where they frequented Los Andes Bakery, in nearby Sleepy Hollow. “Even if it’s a couple of hours away, you drive to it and it’s a thing that you do,” she said. “You spend your Sunday afternoon eating and buying all the goodies that you miss from home. You go, you have empanadas, you buy stupid amounts of junk food, and then you go home happy, and you do it again in a couple of months.”

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She has created a similar destination a hundred miles south in downtown Ambler. Last month, she opened Copihue Bakehouse, named after Chile’s national flower and pronounced “ko-pee-way.” Along with local customers strolling Butler Avenue, she’s meeting Chileans who drive into town to order empanadas or the pastry known as tortas mil hojas, and sit at one of the few tables.

Those visits can run for an hour. “We chit-chat for a while, they tell me about where they’re coming from and what part of Chile they’re from, and they find out my background. Then they sit and order one thing, then they get up and browse a little bit, order some more and sit,” said Tapia-Marmugi, 40, whose husband, David Marmugi, a Venezuelan-born engineer, joins the conversation when he’s there.

Sometimes the food hasn’t even hit the case before it’s sold. Last weekend, she had made a batch of the flan-like semolina pudding called sémola con leche. “I didn’t even put it out, and people were like, ‘Oh, my God. You have this?’ and they scooped it right up,” she said.

The selections in the cases are ever-changing and subject to sell out. The most popular items on the savory side are baked cheese empanadas as well as the cheese-and-onion empanadas known as pequén, served with pebre, a hot sauce made of coriander, tomatoes, parsley, chopped onion, oil, and vinegar. Tomato toast comes out on her house-baked Irish soda bread slathered with tomato and a sprinkle of salt and oregano, as well as traditional avocado toast — a popular South American snack long before Americans bougie-fied it.

You’ll find manjar, a sort of dulce de leche, in many desserts, such as the intensely rich lucuma cups (crispy meringue pieces in a creamy cup full of the fruit known as lucuma and whipped cream); the tortas mil hojas (flaky layers of pastry alternating with manjar and walnuts); brazo de reina (a sponge cake rolled with manjar and covered in coconut); and alfajores (thin, crunchy cookies with manjar in the center). She also sells various scones; cakes such as kuchen de nuez; pies (notably a buttery-crusted lemon meringue); and brown-butter chocolate chip cookies.

Along with teas and coffee from Càphê Roasters are mate, cafe helado, and mote con huesillo — traditionally a summertime drink made with peaches cooked in sugar, water, and cinnamon, and, once cooled, mixed with cooked husked wheat berries.

Tapia-Marmugi, whose family moved to Lansdale, Montgomery County, when she was a teen, came up as a cake baker. She won an episode of Netflix’s Sugar Rush, as she ran Mole Street Baker out of her home when she lived in South Philadelphia. In 2021, she joined Ange Branca’s pandemic incubator, Kampar Kitchen, to develop her savory cooking and also worked at the restaurant Kampar.

Since Tapia-Marmugi is vegetarian, so is everything she makes. “There won’t be any meat on the menu, which I know will [annoy] a bunch of Chileans,” she added, laughing. “But that’s just how I grew up.”

The walls of the sunny shop are filled with her framed photos. A rack is stocked with Chilean snacks, like the gummy candies called guaguitas; ramitas, a crunchy wheat stick; and Super 8 chocolate bars.

“This is kind of my ode to Chile — the food memories. I want people to go inside and feel like they’ve just stepped into a little piece of South America.”

Copihue Bakehouse, 58 E. Butler Ave., Ambler, copihuebakehouse.com. Hours: 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday to Sunday.