Pastry favourite The Butterholic has opened its first bakery

Lunko by the Lane had a soft opening on Sunday and attracted queues of eager pastry lovers even before the doors were open.

One of Liverpool’s most popular bakers, The Butterholic, has opened its first shop, in south Liverpool.

With its signature pastel de nata, filled croissants and cruffins already stocked in coffee shops and restaurants, The Butterholic has built up a huge fanbase since it launched in lockdown.

Now husband and wife team Marius Dogaru and Adelina Blanaru have taken the next step to have their own bakery just off Lark Lane on Little Parkfield Road.

The couple say they’ve been overwhelmed by the response since they started work on the shop in March this year.

“People know our name now and ask for our pastries and the positive feedback has been amazing,” says Adelina. “We didn’t really announce it but I think people have been following our social media so we were still preparing and we had customers coming in.

“Just before we opened me and my sister-in-law were ready to serve and I literally had tears in my eyes because I couldn’t believe it was actually happening.”

Originally from Romania, Marius and Adelina came to Liverpool in 2015. Marius had retrained as a pastry chef after a promising career as a footballer was ended prematurely.

“He got a knee injury so he had to change his career and pastry was something he was fascinated by. Marius’ brother lives in Paris and works in a bakery so he moved to Paris for a year and trained as a pastry chef himself.

“My parents live in Liverpool so we both moved here and Marius started work in a bakery. He was there until the pandemic when he lost his job, which is when we launched The Butterholic.”

They chose the distinctive name, she explains, because the pastries he was making were so irresistible.

“We were looking at a lot of different possible names and obviously you’re using butter, and the pastries you’re creating are so addictive because they’re just so good, so that’s why we decided to go with The Butterholic because it’s like an addiction to the pastries.”

The Butterholic began life in their home kitchen in Kirkby.

“We thought we’d start really small and just give a few pastries to our neighbours but it exploded overnight and he had requests from coffee shops and people were contacting him every day. That’s when we moved the business to the garage because we ran out of space in our home kitchen. 

“Marius bought more equipment for a provisional kitchen in the garage but soon even that wasn’t big enough so a few months later we decided to get the unit which we have now in Speke.”

From there, with Adelina on the business side and Marius making up to 1,000 pastries a day, they have expanded their bakery from Liverpool to add coffee shops and restaurants Wirral, Crosby, Formby, Maghull and Ormskirk.

Their new shop Lunko will be open Friday, Saturday and Sunday from this weekend.

“We should have another baker starting in July so hopefully we might be able to open on Thursdays as well but we have the wholesale business and it takes such a long time to prepare the pastries before we even bake them so we have to make sure we’ve got everything in place,” says Adelina.

“We’re so very grateful to have this opportunity and to be in the location we are. I see Liverpool as our home now, and we love that people have been so welcoming to us and to our business.”

For more info on Lunko by The Butterholic follow them on Instagram HERE.