Auddino’s is a destination joint. It’s a destination joint, because you’re not likely going to be driving on Clara Street for any other purpose.
The spot is off the 11th street exit on 71 near the Fairgrounds, and they’ve been making breads and doughnuts in Columbus for a long time. If you go in the morning, and you’ll see restaurateurs popping in for supplies. In fact, you can grab a few supplies yourself. For a scant $2 you can pick up a 16″ half-baked pizza crust out of the fridge. For reference, that’s going to push the depth of lots of home ovens. The crust is impressive, light, and pretty much impossible to screw up when you make pizza: you don’t have to roll anything out, the pie is baked just enough to hold a big circle. Top it, throw it in the oven to turn it a nice golden brown, and suddenly you’re a rock star.
To get to all those dough rounds, though, you’re going to need to walk past shelves and shelves of fresh-made doughnuts and cookies. Having already made the trip to Auddino’s, there is no good reason to ignore the sweet stuff. To the contrary, it’s a moral imperative to load up on it.
There’s the eternal doughssant. Made trendy a few years back when a New York bakery marketed them as “cronuts”, it’s a croissant that gets the doughnut treatment. That is, you get tender layers of pastry with a sturdy, sweet shell of icing. Get one of those. You can’t go wrong with an old-school, glazed doughnut either: they’re large and fantastically soft and melty. Beyond that, you’ve got good representation from all the other classics including Long Johns, Blueberry, and some sweet stick thing that’s split down the middle with fluffy filling and a bonus layer of sugar. It’s over-the-top sweetness for those who crave pure excess.
You can get yours at 1490 Clara Street.
For more information, visit www.facebook.com/Auddinos-Italian-Bakery/.