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Cristóbal Julio Guarchaj is the head baker of Grandaisy Bakery, voted #1 bread in the 2008 ZAGAT marketplace guidebook.As a boy in Guatemala he watched how his father, a baker, milled wheat using an ancient technique whereby large rotating stones powered by wind and water pulverized the grain into flour. As a youth, rather than follow in his father's footsteps, Cristóbal chose to master the intricate Mayan craft of fabric weaving, called treadle: a seemingly unrelated skill that provided him with invaluable training for his hands that would aid him in his future calling in the United States.

At the age of eighteen, as a recent arrival to this country, he found himself coming full circle and entering his father's profression at the Sullivan Street Bakery, where despite his youth he rose to be the top baking assistant. In 2006, with support of owner Monica Von Thun Calderón, Cristóbal became head baker of Grandaisy. During that year he developed the bakery's new line of brioche breads as well as a popular seven-grain bread.

In his role as head baker, Cristobal has access to the best modern equipment, but his passion and skill for baking remain deeply rooted in the tradition and simplicity of old-fashioned artisanal breads.