Zinneken’s Belgian waffle restaurant brings secret recipe and luxurious toppings to Glastonbury
Zinneken’s Belgian waffle restaurant brings secret recipe and luxurious toppings to Glastonbury
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- Rahul Chugh
- May 12, 2021
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GLASTONBURY — Zinneken’s Belgian Waffles and Café, a popular waffle restaurant and food truck in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has opened its first franchise, in Glastonbury.
The shop at 331 New London Turnpike opened May 1. The idea for the store was hatched three years ago, when Edward and Elizabeth Angelillo of Glastonbury attended a food truck festival in Boston.
“We saw the waffle truck. There was a huge line. We said, why is the line so long? What’s so good about this waffle?” Elizabeth Angelillo said. “We tried it and we loved it. It doesn’t taste like a waffle at a diner. It almost tasted like a brioche.”
She was working as a family relations counselor for the state. Edward was working as a bail bondsman, a job he still holds. They decided to open a restaurant together and Elizabeth would leave her job to run it. “I knew there was something more out there for me. I always wanted to be the boss,” she said.
She trained with Nhon Ma, an immigrant from Belgium who founded Zinneken’s in Cambridge with his childhood friend Bertrand Lempkowicz. Ma gave Angelillo all the knowledge she would need to run a franchise, except one thing. He didn’t give her the recipe for his Liège waffles. It’s a secret.
“This recipe can’t be duplicated. We tried to duplicate it to see if it could be done, and it’s impossible,” she said. “That’s what we wanted. These are waffles you can’t get anywhere else.”
Zinneken’s serves two kinds of waffles. Liège waffles, made from a dough the Angelillos get from Ma’s shop in Cambridge, are soft and chewy and are made with caramelized Belgian pearl sugar. Brussels waffles — the recipe created by Ma but made in the Glastonbury shop — is more light and crispy and made from a batter.
The Brussels waffles are dine-in only. The Liège waffles can be eaten there or taken out.
“The Brussels don’t hold well. The condensation from a closed box causes them to become soggy,” she said. “The Liège waffles, you can take home and reheat in a 400-degree oven for about a minute and they still taste perfect.”
This reflects the waffles’ role in Belgium. Ma said Liège waffles are street food and Brussels waffles usually are eaten sitting down.
“In Belgium, Belgian waffles don’t exist. There are 15 or 16 different kind of waffles: Liège, Brussels, French galette, many others. Liège are the most preferred type because of its portability,” said Ma, whose mother has operated an acclaimed Vietnamese-French fusion restaurant in Brussels for 35 years.
A variety of toppings are available in the Glastonbury restaurant: strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, bananas, chocolate, crumbled Oreos, caramel, maple syrup, whipped cream, ice cream, Nutella and Speculoos cookie butter, a spread made from crushed cookies.
Zinneken’s also sells smoothies, juice, coffee and a variety of teas from the Parisian tea company Palace des Thés. Customers in the café listen to French radio, and are guarded over by a brass statuette of Petit Julien, a cherubic child whose statue is a tourist attraction in Brussels.
The word “zinneken” refers to the Dutch and French roots of the people of Brussels.
The Angelillos said they also are looking at opening a franchise either in the southern part of the state or in Rhode Island, as well as one in Florida. zinnekenswaffles.com.
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Rahul Chugh
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