Essen Bakery: East Passyunk gets a Jewish-style bakery

East Passyunk's culinary melting pot keeps stirring.

Opening April 7 will be Essen Bakery (1437 E. Passyunk Ave., 215-271-2299), whose chef/owner, Tova du Plessis, 30, specializes in Jewish-style baking - rugelach, apple and honey cakes, cheesecakes, challahs, and the like. (Essen, of course, means "food" or "to eat" in Yiddish.)

Du Plessis also will sell Elixr coffee - drip coffee, cold brew and teas, as well as French press to those sitting down as well as a hand-poured option - and two ready-to-eat sandwiches to keep things simple.

Three small tables inside take up much of the snug interior.

Hours will be early morning to late afternoon Wednesday to Sunday.

Du Plessis, a native of South Africa, has a neat back story. She moved to Israel and then to the States to enroll at the University of Houston as a biology major with the intention of becoming a physician. After obtaining her bachelor's, she changed her mind. She enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America's campus in Napa Valley.

While interning as a pastry chef at the Restaurant at Meadowood nearby, who should come in as a guest chef but Michael Solomonov, chef/co-owner of Zahav in Society Hill. She was impressed that a modern-Israeli restaurant in Philadelphia was doing well.

That encouraged her - and her now-husband, Brad - to move east in 2012.

The previous occupant of the space was Belle Cakery, owned by Jessie Prawlucki, who owns Fond with her husband, Lee Styer, and Tory Keomanivong.

Essen's savory menu, including the sandwiches and coffee varietal of the day, is set up on a roll of butcher paper, while the cakes, pastries, and breads are listed on a blackboard above the counter.