OUTSTANDING BAKER OR DESSERT PROFESSIONAL: Colleen Stillwell
Colleen Stillwell, Butter Block
26 Rhode Island Street, Buffalo, NY 14213
Colleen Stillwell’s Butter Block is a French patisserie on Buffalo’s West Side, offering a range of sweet and savory baked goods, including laminated, butter-rich pastries like croissants, eclairs, danish and kouign-amann. Butter Block goes through hundreds of pounds of French butter a week in its dedication to the holy art of viennoiserie. Each pastry exhibits a visible honeycomb cross-section of distinct, even layers beneath a shatteringly delicate golden crust.
The flavors strike the ideal balance of richness, sweetness and saltiness underpinned by the fragrant notes of yeast and fermentation. Other offerings include perfect seasonal fruit pies and quiches, mousse cakes, cookies, tarts, macarons, bouchons and more. Stillwell’s path began in a local high school vocational program and continued at the Culinary Institute of America at St. Helena, where she graduated with honors and trained under chef Stephen Durfee, a French Laundry alum. From there, she moved on to work in pastry at Daniel Boulud’s Restaurant Daniel, then to Lincoln Ristorante under chef Richard Capizzi. Returning to Buffalo, she taught at Niagara Falls Culinary Institute before launching Butter Block in 2014 as a farmers’ market stand. Since 2020, she has mentored the region’s next generation of pastry chefs at her own patisserie.
