photo/Dan Zarin
Ugly Duckling
246 Danforth St., Portland
536-1819
uglyducklingmaine.com
I first fell in love with Ilma Lopez’s pastries nearly a decade ago, at Piccolo, the since-shuttered Italian bistro she owned with her husband, Damian Sansonetti. At the time, I described her zeppoli as “delicate and cloudlike,” and waxed poetic about the heavenly vanilla-orange dipping sauce [see “The Breakfast Serial,” Nov. 2014].
Years have passed, but my affection for these confections continues to grow. I’ve been known to eat dessert first at Chaval, the couple’s bistro in Portland’s West End, and I’m not ashamed. So yeah, you could say I was excited when the pair opened a new, breakfast-focused restaurant in the same neighborhood earlier this year.
Ugly Duckling features a menu of sandwiches on housemade buttermilk English muffins, along with coffee drinks and creative cocktails like the Vampire Weekend ($14), a curious combination of Allen’s Cold Brew, applejack, vodka, creme de cacao and beet preserve. The pastry selection changes daily, but always includes some version of Lopez’s signature creation: a decadent, softball-sized, filled pastry called a trocadero.
There aren’t a lot of tables, and the line can stretch out the door at peak weekend brunch times, but you can usually find a spot at the counter if you’re willing to wake up early or visit on a weekday. Even better, take it to go and eat at home, where no one can shame you for eating that second pastry. That’s what I did on a recent Sunday, arriving at 7:30 a.m. to order takeout breakfast for my wife and me.
We shared three sandwiches, starting with the Pastrami on Rye ($10.95). For this breakfast version of the Jewish deli classic, Ugly Duckling layered thick slices of housemade beef pastrami with a fried egg, funky aged provolone cheese and zesty horseradish-espresso aioli between the halves of a rye-caraway English muffin.
Next up was a riff on a BLT ($10.75) served on an “everything” English muffin. The acidic crunch of pickled red onions perfectly offset the richness of the meaty applewood-smoked bacon, fried egg and mayo, while fresh shredded lettuce and diced tomato made it feel like a complete meal.
The Salmon Sammy ($11.95) was a delicious update to the traditional bagel with lox. A rye-caraway English muffin was filled with smoked salmon from Portland’s Browne Trading Co., along with briny caper cream cheese, pickled onions, and a creamy slaw made of Brussels sprouts and kelp. The whole thing quickly devolved into a squishy mess and I loved every minute of it.
As good as the sandwiches were, visiting Ugly Duckling without buying pastries should be at least a misdemeanor. After an appetite-restoring stroll around the block, we poured some coffee and devoured a pastel de nata ($5), a traditional Portuguese custard tart that was light and crisp outside, dense and velvety smooth inside.
Our final and most memorable treat of the morning was a Boston Cream Puff ($10): flaky choux pastry filled with vanilla pastry cream and lightly sweetened whipped cream, topped with bittersweet chocolate ganache. Next time I catch a flight from the jetport, I want to stop here first so I can bring one of these as an emotional-support dessert.
And that, my friends, is love.
Ugly Duckling is open daily from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
