M & A Bakery

Having some familiarity with Serbo-​Croatian cuisine from my past life, I finally made it in the «M Bakery» for some burek. You have to get there early for the lamb burek. I settled for the cheese and spinach options for $ 8.00 each. I haven’t had burek since 2008, but it’s a delicious as I remember.
The baked goods looked far superior to that which you’ll find at Mariano’s or Dunkin Donuts and for a fraction of the price.
I will update after trying the lamb which I understand is worth the price of admission.

european bakery very well done fresh kifle lamb its def one of top bakeries in chicagoland

THE BEST EVERYTHING!!! This place is a hidden gem. The pastries are phenomenal and are like 80 cents each. Wonderful. It’s fun to browse the European items and then pick 1 thing for fun. Definitely worth a look. Also, great bread.

Wow. The other reviews that urged me to come by for a burek were NOT joking around.
Amazing, delicious, and huge spinach and cheese burek!
Also, check out the small selection of eastern Euro groceries. My friend bought a bottle of sour cherry syrup, which is AMAZING in cocktails.
The ambiance is a little… rustic, shall we say? There are a couple small tables and chairs, but I wouldn’t recommend it for a hot date. However, it’s a great place to meet up with friends or just stop by alone to stuff your face with delicious treats.

I had been here several times for European chocolates, sour cherry syrup (for homemade sodas), and occasionally a piece of Bosnian cake, before I decided to look these folks up on Unilocal and then discovered this whole burek thing.
Never having had a burek before, we went yesterday to get some for breakfast. For $ 6.50, you get a savory, flaky, custardy pie (filled with either cheese, meat, or spinach/​cheese), the size of a dinner plate.
We brought two home (although they do have tables there) and feasted; seriously, a single burek is a lot of food. We really liked the flaky/​creamy texture and the tang in the spinach/​cheese burek; we will definitely be eating these again.
The folks who work here are also really friendly.

This bakery is right down the street for me! It is so good, that I walked in the snow to get a dessert from here:) Chicago is filled with secrete gems and this is one of them! One of main things I miss about being in Europe is the Börek. This bakery has three types and also has a small grocery store in the front. The pastries are to die for and are freshly made every morning. Try to come early they do sell out of things quickly. Apparently they have apple fritters, but ive never gotten up early enough to try them! If you aren’t from the area, definitely worth the commute:)

Daaaaaamnnnnnn! The cheese burek here is slap yo mama good! (Mom if you’re reading this, I’m just kidding I swear)
I stopped by here on a whim today, and have been wanting to check this place out for a while. The owners are superrrrr nice!
Krempita is yummy, and the bear claw is good too, but the burek, the burek man, it just adds a whole new level of beauty to life.
I’m picky with my burek too. After having the real deal on my trip to Serbia, I haven’t really liked any here in the city, but that my friends has changed, thanks to this glorious (and cheap!) bakery.
Get yo burek fix here if you’re about that life.

This place should be illegal how good it is. Burek and lamb rocks. An amazing breakfast choices

Definitely my favorite bakery so far in the area. Everything is freshly baked and pretty cheap. I love their spinach pie, it’s so light and fluffy.
The also have a ground meat (I think it’s lamb) pie which was ok, and a small selection of Eastern European groceries.

I saw this place riding home from the Metra on my bike. When I saw the window advertising burek I had to stop by, as was my duty as a North African. I expected the owners to be either from Turkey or North Africa, but was pleasantly surprised to find that they were from the Balkans (I say «pleasantly» because I’d never had Burek from that region before). I was expecting a slice of burek possibly the size of an empanada, but was given one the size of my face. Needless to say, inhalation promptly ensued. The cheese… phyllo…spinach. It was wild. Euphoric. The baker has her textures DOWN. As a lover and lifelong eater of burek, I have to say this was arguably the best burek experience of my life. And my mom makes incredible burek. Anyhow, I followed it up with some baklava and was also thoroughly impressed. Check this place out! It’s authentic, clean, and seems to have yet to be discovered. Will most definitely be stopping by more often.

mmm, delicious breakfast pastries! wish i still lived nearby

I came in specifically to try their apple fritter, but sampled a few other items as well. Most of it was solid but not worth buying again. The apple fritter was missing apples. Cinnamon and sugar too. But it featured plenty of fried flavor. All in all, not a good one.
M & A is close to home but I don’t think that I will come back. The place reeks of lamb grease, which is really unappetizing at any time of day, but especially first thing in the morning when a person is in the mood for glorious bakery smells.
On the other hand, they open at 7am, there is a tiny parking lot in front, and the prices are low, low, low.

I had heard great things from a friend in the neighborhood, but never managed to make it in, until it was my turn to bring in the donuts to work for the donut club.
I called the night before and said I would need four dozen donuts at 830. I was early, and as I walked in, the donuts were just being taken out of the oven. They were so fresh! Kudos to the apple fritters, the straight up chocolate donuts, the perfect glazed, and every other pastry that was in that box. They tossed in a couple of free cups of coffee for good measure and the donuts at work were a hit!
I had read a review about a cheese bagel thing and I grabbed two on the way out and ate them in the car with my friend. They were awesome.
Super nice couple, very nice people, excellent bakers and if you live in Ravenswood, Andersonville, Uptown, or anywhere in the city and happen to be over on Lawrence and Ashland, trust me, do yourself a favor, pop in and stop off and grab something — because this place is a complete gem!

I really want to love it, but every time we’ve been the bakery items we’ve come home with have been stale. True, we haven’t tried the lamb but honestly when I go to a bakery, I want baked goods. That’s just how I roll. Anyway, yesterday was our third and final attempt at loving this place. I sent my fiancé out for «anything bready and slightly sweet» which, at a bakery, should not be super hard. Just like our other experiences there, what came back wasn’t that great and was slightly stale.
Very disappointing. But definitely cheap.

This is my second visit at M & A. The first time I bought canned plum butter.
Tonight I was doing laundry next door and the lamb sign seemed very appealing. I was not sure what format to order it but he said I could get as much as I need. Bought quarter pound to try. I also got a jar of pickled peppers to go with it.
Delicious! The lamb is fatty and tender. I do love fatty lamb, so no complaints here. Worth every penny. The pickled peppers complemented the meat perfectly.
The place looks very clean and simple. There are some tables closer to the front, maybe I will eat my food there next time. Wish I could sample the bakery goods, they looked wonderful, but I can’t eat wheat :(
There are lot more promising items in there, like the Turkish cheese in a jar and the various cured meats in the fridge.
I will be back for the lamb!

Spinach & cheese pie for the win.
Very good Danish, as well.

I’m almost afraid to say anything about this bakery, hidden in a rundown strip mall on the corner of Lawrence and N. Ashland. Not that I am a stingy person … I just don’t want it to become abused. Oh, who am I kidding? Here’s what I have to say about M&A Bakery: IT’S THE BOMB.
While doing my laundry in the strip’s dilapidated laundromat on Saturday, I walked next door to see what was in there. The windows of the place are black and it’s hard to see through the door (is that legal??). Anyway, I walked in and about 4 Bosnian men were standing around shooting the breeze with cups of coffee and freshly baked pastries. In the glass cases at the front of the store, once you walk past the cute patio-​looking seating area, are beautiful breads, rolls, bagels, sweet treats (including doughnuts, baklava, and more). The solicitors moved back when I came in and the woman at the counter who barely spoke English looked a bit surprised. I guess not to many brown goddesses come in there or … did I interrupt a serious conversation? idk
Anyway, I set my sights on this blueberry bagel and asked for cream cheese. The woman rang up my order, which totaled … a whopping $ 0.86! I couldn’t believe the bagel AND tub of Philly Cream Cheese — not some generic brand — was less than a dollar! I gave her four quarters (I was of course doing laundry) and told her to keep the change. I broke a piece of the bagel off and swirled it in the schmear. It was that perfect combination of flaky and chewy. The blueberry flavor wasn’t overwhelming — didn’t taste or look artificial. I can’t wait to have a dinner party and buy some of that amazing looking foccacia or dunk those Danish pastries into some coffee!
You can’t beat this price with a log. Dunkin’ Donuts, jam it! Starbucks, go back to Seattle!

I stopped by here this morning for a couple of donuts. Very small parking and super hard & steep getting out of the little lot. My car scrapped hard pulling out of the parking lot.
I felt a bit awkward trying this little bakery as I didn’t speak the language, but the donuts are actually amazingly good!!! I got a round donut & a chocolate long john. The long john was bigger than usual and it was just $ 1.83 for both. The cake on the donuts was unlike anywhere else I’ve ever had! It was so light & airy like biting into a cloud… so different and so good! The chocolate frosting was so thick, sugary and tasty as well!
Very yummy baked goods at this little shop!

M & A Bakery is located in a glum stripmall on a particularly depressing part of Lawrence, just around the corner from where we live. Ignore the environs and step on in this place!
Clearly, from reading the rest of these reviews, I’m sorely amiss in not having purchased their lamb for my carnivore husband, but I’ll definitely go back for that soon. I come here for their multigrain sandwich bread (delicious and they’ll slice it for you), as well as their Eastern European groceries: Polish gingerbread cookies, kefir, their huge jars of red peppers for only $ 6 (seriously, these things are huge and so much cheaper than Trader Joe’s), jars of pickles, etc.
It sounds as though I need to branch out and try their pastries, and though I’m always suspect of bagels from a place that doesn’t specialize in bagels, I have to admit that their poppyseed bagels looked nice.
They also sell cevapi – «sausages» with no casings made from minced beef and served with bread and onions – which we haven’t tried. This is a nice place to explore, especially if you’re in the neighborhood.

WTF?! Lamb being sold out of the alley?! Most people would be terrified… my husband and I are trying to find the time to get over there before it sells out.
We were invited to a friend’s for dinner and were expected to bring a dessert. I had to work late and didn’t have time to whip something up so I Unilocaled «bakery» in our area and came up with this place.
With only a few moments to spare, we ran in, looked over the baked goods, picked out a few donuts and what appeared to be apple and cherry turnovers and ran out.
The donuts were probably delicious when they came fresh out of the fryer hours prior. However, they were stale by the time they made it to our dessert plates. You’ll have the same problem when you buy donuts at 7:00pm anywhere so I’ll let it slide.
But the turnovers… MMMMMM. I only had some of the apple because they were a big hit and I didn’t move fast enough. Not too sweet, not too tart… Perfect… and flakey too. They alone got this place a 4 star rating.
We’re interested in going back to try the donuts when they’re fresh as well as the lamb on the downlow. They also had some incredible looking breads showcased in a glass case. I wonder if they are delicious as they are lovely…