More than a bakery, Pavé is a haven for lunch

Pavé Specialty Bakery, established in 1992, is becoming a downtown Everett institution.

It’s a bakery, a catering hub and a soup, salad and sandwich hot spot.

It is worthy of such status?

Yes, indeed.

Pavé is a bright, cheery, high-ceiling sort of haunt with six small tables (arrive before the rush to ensure yourself a spot) and a long bar at the window overlooking bustling Colby Avenue.

High overhead, a giant chalkboard features almost too many lunch options.

One long display case, almost the entire width of the space, is filled with French pastries, down-home baked goods and a variety of salads and ready-to-heat entrees such as quiches, macaroni and cheeses and paninis.

Breads of all sorts, including a selection of mini loaves, line a case on a side wall.

Here’s the most important part: All this good stuff is made in house.

I couldn’t resist the meatloaf panini ($4.25 for half; $8.50 for a whole).

It featured a moist, thinly sliced slab of meat, simply dressed with tomatoes and mayo, all neatly ensconced in a soft-yet-crisp, grill-marked bread.

Pavé’s sandwiches are well engineered. They stay intact during eating with just the right bread-to-filling ratio.

Pavé’s generous portions, however, might catch you off guard.

Half sandwiches are more like wholes. Paninis are even bigger.

If you order a whole meatloaf panini — which is actually two of the large squares displayed in the case — you’ll be set for lunch for two days.

Entree salads ($7.75 to $9.75) are also hefty.

My dining companion tried the salad sampler ($8.99), which included three selections of her choosing from the display case.

She picked a fresh broccoli salad with a creamy dressing, a traditional Greek salad and an Asian salad with noodles and cabbage.

She enjoyed the well-melded flavors and fresh crunch of the first two, but didn’t finish the third because she detected an unpleasant aftertaste. It came with three bread samples, hazelnut, spinach and ciabatta. All were moist, delicious and distinctively different.

On my second visit, I had a soup-and-half-sandwich combo ($7.75).

Score extra points for Pavé for having my favorite sandwich cheese — havarti, a creamy accompaniment to my selections of turkey, sliced cucumber, pickles and mayo on a lovely rosemary onion bread.

Pavé’s bread is soft in the middle and crisp but not impenetrable at the crusty edge, unlike so many so-called artisan breads that require you to tear aggressively at the crust with your teeth (not good for sandwiches).

During my visits, which featured extremely friendly and efficient service, I also tried two soups ($4.25 each).

One was a Southwest butter bean, a fantastic concoction that reminded me of tortilla soup, but better. Its creamy texture, delicious beans and corn matched beautifully with well-balanced spices and cream cheese topping.

I was less thrilled with the beef stroganoff soup, which tasted more like a cream of mushroom with bits of steak and some odd, skinny noodles thrown in for novelty.

When it comes to sweets at Pavé, you can’t go wrong.

Whether it’s their otherworldly Hawaiian muffins, their “magic bars,” signature sour cherry chocolate chip cookies ($2) or nut tarts ($2.95), you’ll be spending calories well (if not quite wisely).

Note: If you order a boxed lunch to go, you’re in charge of grabbing your own beverage, in the Pepsi cooler to your left, and your own chips, tucked oddly under the bread display case.

Pavé delivers to downtown Everett locations from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday. Orders under $25 incur a $5 delivery charge.



Sarah Jackson: 425-339-3037; sjackson@heraldnet.com.