Columbus Bakeries: Three Bites Bakery

A professional baker for six years, Isabella Bonello worked at Pistacia Vera and Fox in the Snow Café before launching her own cottage bakery, Three Bites, a year and a half ago as a side business.

When the pandemic began, Bonello was working in the corporate baking department at L Brands. When the company no longer needed birthday cakes and pastries for meetings, Bonello’s department was eliminated. In August 2020, Three Bites became her full-time focus. “I think the one thing that would set Three Bites apart is it’s not just a hobby; it’s what I’ve spent years developing,” she says, explaining that her goal is to open a retail bakery someday.

Through her website and local makers markets, Bonello sells pastry assortment boxes with treasures as far ranging as pan de coco, Chinese five spice shortbread, brown butter rum cake and jalapeño cornbread. She also sells custom cakes.

“I always include shortbread cookies of some flavor in every variety box I do, and it is consistently some people’s favorites. I also love doing savory stuff. Pastry doesn’t always have to be sweet,” she says.

Bonello takes baking inspiration primarily from her family’s background, which is Italian and Filipino. Because of those influences, her pastries aren’t too sweet, featuring a lot of nuts and fruits, and not too big.

“Whenever you go to Europe, a lot of the desserts, a lot of their pastries, they’re not too big. I feel like that’s something, at least in Columbus, that’s lacking. Everything is kind of the size of your head,” she says. “I really believe that you’re allowed to have sugar, you’re allowed to have butter. It’s just you only literally need like three bites.”