Woman Tours a Brand New SoHo Rye Bread Shop Built on a 57 Year Old Austrian Sourdough Starter, Samples Three Open Face Toasts and Says the Brie Tasted Like Butter

Left: cover still from a TikTok video by @@fooodforfooodies. Right: Toasted bread on a white plate (Unsplash photo by Seriously Low Carb).

The TikTok from @fooodforfooodies lasts 44 seconds, and it begins on a sunny New York sidewalk. A woman in a black tank top holds up a white takeout box with an open face toast inside. “There is a brand new bread shop in SoHo that specializes in sourdough rye bread from Austria,” she says, and the on screen label reads “RYE BREAD SHOP.” The caption adds that the shop sells a $60 loaf, a price the video itself never shows or mentions.

The origin story comes next, and the frames cut to a street sign and a hanging flag. “This is a very special bread recipe that comes from a 57 year old sourdough starter,” she says. A young baker in a brown shirt appears in front of a wall of round, cracked crust loaves and gives the recipe in a sentence: “We use four ingredients to make our bread.” The voiceover finishes the list as “100% rye flour imported from Austria, water, salt and 48 hours time.”

Then the walk through the shop. “As soon as you walk in, you go to this bread wall where they have rye bread tasting,” she says, and the frames show a bowl lined with a cloth, a pair of tongs and small cubes of dark rye handed over the counter. Further in is a glass case of open face sandwiches the caption calls “toast,” with slices of rye topped with bright orange spread and pale cream in neat rows. She gives the price range in one line: “Each will run you around six to 14 dollars.”

She ordered three. “I got the hummus, za’atar and Brie and jam toasts,” she says, and the box on camera shows two of them lined up, a tan hummus slice and a creamy slice topped with a dark spoonful of jam. The Brie gets the loudest reaction. “The Brie is imported from France, and it literally tasted like butter,” she says, and then she takes a big bite on the sidewalk and raises her eyebrows. “It was insane,” she adds, a phrase that works as the verdict for the whole stop.

The last shot goes behind the counter. Through a glass partition, the frames show bakers in white working at long tables with racks of loaves behind them, and she says, “On this side you can see all the bakers making the rye sourdough bread.” She does not give the shop’s hours, a menu or any price for the loaves in the voiceover. Her sign off is short: “Anyway, this is delicious and I’ll be going back. That’s all. I’ll see you next time.”

Cheese is the part of this order that comes with official guidance. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Listeria page for pregnant women says to avoid cheeses made with unpasteurized milk, and it says cheeses made with pasteurized milk are fine, with the exception of queso fresco style cheeses. The page does not name Brie, so anyone who is pregnant or has a weakened immune system should check whether a specific cheese is made with pasteurized milk and talk to a doctor or other health care provider. The video does not say how the Brie on this toast was made.