Boulder’s Süti & Co. has a lot more going on than just tea, coffee, and really good shortbread. Over the last year chef and owner Andrea Uzarowski has started hosting intimate supper clubs, showcasing the cooking skills she’s acquired over years of working at lauded restaurants.
“Honestly, I had a selfish reason for starting our Supper Clubs,” said Uzarowski. “The last 25 years I’ve always cooked someone else’s menu, and as chefs, we want to put our own stamp on things.”
Now, having opened Süti & Co. in fall of 2022, the chef has her own space to cook what she wants. These often sold-out events happen once a month, with just 25 diners, costing $185 each. Uzarowski takes inspiration from her childhood in Denmark, family dinners, and ideas she had dreamed up years ago while working in Michelin-starred restaurants.
Each meal takes direction from what’s in season and fresh at the local farmers’ markets. Sometimes, she said, the final menu doesn’t get decided until the last hour or two. And, in honoring that dedication, Uzarowski welcomes her guests by explaining the inspiration behind each course.
“Seating is communal-style because we want to encourage people to meet each other,” she said. “By the second course, people are talking and laughing and they leave at the end of the evening having exchanged phone numbers with new friends they have made.”
Uzarowski’s goal with these dinners centered around creating an experience where everyone could enjoy the meal without feeling rushed. It’s the same philosophy Uzarowski has brought to Süti & Co.’s daytime operations, embracing the Danish ideal of hygge and exuding a casual, welcoming, and pleasing atmosphere.
Redefining Hygge in Boulder
It’s easy to see how Süti & Co. embodies the Danish word hygge, which simply means embracing the idea of cozy comfort, slowing down and enjoying where you are. The shop resides in a historic Victorian house off Pearl Street that’s been painted a contemporary midnight gray color with accents of natural wood and muted neutrals.
Inside guests will find a simple coffee counter and retail space selling Scandinavian housewares, tableware, art, and sundries. Everything evokes the soothing, simple, and beautiful Scandi aesthetic, the perfect pairing with the hygge lifestyle. Chairs are draped with fluffy sheepskins, there are woven baskets full of branches, and low tables invite people to linger.
“The whole idea was to have a space that’s about the customer and not about the bottom line,,” says Uzarowski. “I want people to come here to recharge, have no worries about anything, whatever troubles they have, whatever is going on at home, stresses at work, I want them to forget about it while they’re here with us.”
Süti & Co.’s Minimalist Noshing to Fill the Soul
The menu at Süti & Co. is intentional, filled with creative and beautifully executed items. Coffee beans come from the local Boulder roaster, Boxcar. While the beverage menu boasts the usual lineup of coffees, it also includes drinks such as the lavender latte infused with flavored simple syrup and sprinkled with lavender, and a sister sipper done the same way only with rose instead. The thoughtful line up of teas come from PLŪKT, a Nordic-inspired tea company from Latvia. You’ll also find hot chocolate, turmeric lattes, and seasonal mocktails.
For those who want a heartier snack, there’s a short menu of smørrebrød, a type of Danish open-faced sandwich. Choose from meatball, trout, avocado, or a dill-infused egg salad layered atop rye bread from Moxie Bread Co.
For a sweet finish, Süti & Co. has a menu of pastries like scones, tartlets, strudels, and danishes, but a favorite is their olive-oil cakes. Offered in three flavors including lemon zest, chocolate, and cardamom-rosewater, they are subtly sweet. They are also draped in royal icing and topped with rose petals, chocolate shavings, or lemon zest, making this the prettiest cake in town.
Another special item at Süti & Co. are shortbreads inspired by the special people in Uzorowski’s life. She began with a basic shortbread recipe she learned from her grandmother, then asked her family members what they would taste like if they were shortbread.
“The Anna, named after my youngest daughter, is a classic lemon zest shortbread with raspberry jam, and is our most popular,” explained the chef. “The Lily, which is named after my oldest daughter, is two chocolate shortbread cookies sandwiched together with chocolate ganache and topped in crumbles.”
Other cookie flavors include one inspired by her son Oliver, who wanted to be a chocolate chip cookie. Hence Uzarowski created a vegan, gluten-free chocolate chip shortbread. As for her grandmother, Magdalena, who always loved anything with walnuts, the chef created a shortbread with candied walnuts and fig butter.
From Finance to Potatoes
Uzarowski grew up in a suburb of Copenhagen, where she lived with her grandmother, parents, and two siblings. Even from a young age she gravitated to the kitchen. By her teenage years, she took over making family meals on Sundays.
“My grandma and I spent a lot of time in the kitchen, and I have early memories of washing dishes,” reminisced the chef. “As I’ve gone through my culinary career, I’ve often laughed at the notion that even as a child I worked my way up from a dishwasher to a prep cook to a sous chef.”
Her first knife job involved chopping garlic, then cutting onions, and finally making the pasta.
“At first it was just spending time with my grandma, but then as I got older, it was about the satisfaction of seeing the look of fulfillment and happiness on everyone’s faces from eating my food,” said Uzarowski.
But cooking wasn’t the first career path Uzarowski followed. While in school in Denmark, she focused on economics and computer science. Then, based on her parents’ wishes for her to have a reliable career, she went into finance.
Uzarowski moved to the U.S. in 1993, getting a job as an investment banker with Goldman Sachs. At the back of her mind, though, was always food. While working at the security firm, she’d report back to her family about the recipes she was experimenting with. Finally, after one of these weekly calls, her mother encouraged her to quit her finance job and enroll in culinary school.
She did, enrolling in the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, followed by a challenging, soul-sucking job at one of New York City’s top restaurants.
“Everything prior to that led me to develop a certain amount of grit, a certain level of persistence when working with difficult clients and coworkers that weren’t very nice,” she said. The first chef she worked with had her peeling potatoes for three months, every single day.
“He told me, ‘a woman’s place isn’t in the kitchen,’ and no one talked to me,” said Uzarowski. At first she took it to heart, but quickly turned the sentiment around.
“I was feeling sorry for myself one day and thought, ‘wait a minute, women are good enough to run a household, raise kids, do the shopping and errands, and make dinner, it’s like running a mini-organization and we are well equipped to handle high-stress environments because of what we deal with day to day,” she said. “That was a turning point, so I dug my heels in and kept figuring out ways to be more efficient.”
Eventually, she stopped peeling potatoes and moved on.
The Making of Süti & Co.
Uzarowski found herself in Boulder in 2016 when her then-husband’s job brought her family to Colorado. Uzarowski knew she didn’t want to be in a typical restaurant setting, which meant coming home at 2 a.m. with a baby at home. She took a job running the catering kitchen for the University of Colorado, which previously outsourced the work.
Uzarowski was tasked with getting the chancellor to use in-house catering. She was so successful at her job that when she left to work for a private catering company, the owner of that company told her she was responsible for taking a $350,000 bite out of their annual revenue that had previously come from university gigs.
When the pandemic struck, her job and the jobs of her 37 staff members were dissolved. Uzarowski, then in the middle of a divorce, pivoted and created her own catering company, Fresh Food Further, specializing in helping people create memorable events during a time when events were being canceled and the world was shut down.
“Brides would call me in a panic and I helped them figure it out on the fly because I can’t even imagine what that must feel like,” she says. “I was getting glassware and plates, packing it into the back of my car, going to clients’ homes with double face masks, and planning the wedding with them.”
In a way, she added, she went from being a chef to being a sales person, marketer, event planner, and rental company. Business grew further when, while scrolling Instagram one day, the chef found a woman who had converted a church in Golden into an event space. Uzarowski reached out about her catering company and was asked to cater one of the Golden venue’s first retreats. Fresh Food Further’s popularity blew up.
Soon Uzarowski was being flown to other states to cater events such as feeding the board of directors of North Face, doing holiday parties in Cherry Hills Village that required her to sign an NDA, cooking for a former Colorado Attorney General, and acting as personal chef for one of the Real Housewives at her Telluride ranch. She’s cheffed for Tom Cruise and the producer of the Harry Potter movies.
“This isn’t a steamed broccoli and grilled chicken catering gig, you’re there to take care of your client from a food standpoint,” she said. “I’m on site and available 24-7. We didn’t advertise and we didn’t have a menu on the website, because every single client gets a customized experience.”
Since opening Süti & Co. two years ago, Uzarowski has scaled back on the number of clients she caters. This way, she said, she has time to work on Süti & Co. and create a space where people can get a break from the stress of their everyday lives. But, always the business woman, the chef is in talks to open a second Süti & Co., just as long as, she added, there’s time for her to take a break and embrace her personal hygge lifestyle along the way.
Visiti Süti & Co. Tuesday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 2031 16th St., Boulder, sutiandco.com
