Feeding peo­ple is an art of seduction

We, at Azafrán, strongly believe that it is in our every­day life that we acquire mean­ing and inspi­ra­tion. In serv­ing food, we are part of our guests’ daily life and we trea­sure that relation. We cre­ate our meals from the fresh­est ingre­di­ents, pre­pare them with care and atten­tion, and serve them in a wel­com­ing space by our great staff. Empty plates, smiles, return­ing guests and warm words are our rewards.

History

Café Azafrán came about on a cold win­ter after­noon when John Shields, our beloved Chesapeake chef and owner of Gertude’s, sug­gested work­ing with Irena to rein­vent the cafe­te­ria at the Space Telescope Science Institute located on the Johns Hopkins University Homewood cam­pus. The sci­en­tists in the insti­tute were look­ing to bring fresh food and good cof­fee to their work­ing envi­ron­ment, a place where extra­or­di­nary ideas and projects take shape (and are launched). Scientists from around the world come and share new tech­nolo­gies, the­o­ries and per­spec­tives for under­stand­ing the world around us. What bet­ter oppor­tu­nity than to feed those who are our “eyes to the universe”?

Thus, Café Azafrán opened on September 25, 2004. It has grown to become a deli­cious break­fast, cof­fee and lunch des­ti­na­tion and a wel­com­ing set­ting for sci­ence dis­cus­sions, neigh­bor­hood gath­er­ings, inter-disciplinary dia­logues, professor-student meet­ings and inter­ac­tion among the Johns Hopkins com­mu­nity at large.

Staff

Our staff is very kind, well man­nered and upbeat. We under­stand the impor­tance of good cus­tomer rela­tions and that a pos­i­tive atti­tude is as impor­tant as the knowl­edge of the food trade. We try to cre­ate work con­di­tions that will instill such a pos­i­tive attitude.

Food and purveyors

Azafrán food is healthy, very fla­vor­ful, and light, and is meant to make peo­ple happy at work. It is made daily in our kitchen at the Space Telescope Science Institute.  Vegetarian selec­tions are always a part of our daily menu. Eggs and most of our meats are hor­mone and antibiotic-free.

We source most of our food from the fol­low­ing places:

Farms: Springfield farm, MD; Sunnyside farm, PA; Black Rock Orchard, MD;  Pinegrove Farm, MD; Olli farm, VA; Cherry Glenn,  MD

Breads and empanadas: Max’s Empanadas, Bonaparte, Stone Mill Bakery, Patisserie Poupon, all four in Baltimore, MD.

Fish, selec­tion of meats and other goods: JJ Mc Donnell, Fells Point meats, Chefs Warehouse, Restaurant Depot.

Sustainable prac­tices

Azafrán has been com­mit­ted to a health­ier and cleaner envi­ron­ment since its open­ing day. Porcelain and glass are used in the din­ing area.  All Compostable mate­ri­als are now used for our take-out pack­ag­ing. We are soon to become a zero waste cafe, like Alkimia. We are now part­ner­ing with the Space Telescope Institute and Johns Hopkins University to fur­ther pur­sue com­mu­nity efforts to become even greener in every pos­si­ble way.

testimonials

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Dear Irena

Thank you for all that you do to pro­vide healthy, won­der­ful food that looks good, tastes fab­u­lous, and makes me feel good about what I am feed­ing my body.  And for serv­ing it so gra­ciously.  That you can do all this in such an envi­ron­men­tally friendly way is truly an inspiration!

Cheers!

Linda M. Thompson

STScI/OED/DSB

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Dear Irena,

Azafrán Catering has brought superb qual­ity, del­i­cate taste, and enor­mous grace to the Homewood cam­pus in ways that are sim­ply unpar­al­leled else­where. Café Alkimia is a daily stop (and often much more than that)for all the human­i­ties fac­ulty and stu­dents. It is also the place of choice on cam­pus where we meet col­leagues and stu­dents from other build­ing to the beau­ti­fully ren­o­vated Gilman Hal. The food and drinks served and, indeed, the atten­tive and friendly ser­vice, exceed any stan­dards most of us have encoun­tered else­where at this uni­ver­sity, as well as nation-wide and even inter­na­tion­ally. Visiting Azafrán and Alkimia, and hope­fully more loca­tions run by Irena Stein’s won­der­ful team in the future, is sim­ply a must for all who care for mind, soul, and body. It is the site that, quite lit­er­ally, offers us not just our daily bread, but much food for thought.

Warmly,

Hent

Hent de Vries

Russ Family Professor in the Humanities

The Humanities Center & Department of Philosophy

Director

The Humanities Center

Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences

Johns Hopkins University

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Dear Irena,

I just wanted to take a moment to thank you again for the won­der­ful recep­tion at Corradetti last Saturday.  We could not have asked for any­thing more.  The food was fab­u­lous, for lack of an even more descrip­tive word, and the vari­ety of the menu was loved by every­one I spoke with.  Everything was pre­sented in exactly the way Alicia had dreamed it should be, and she and Matt could not have been happier!

My hus­band and I enjoyed meet­ing you very much.  Your pro­fes­sion­al­ism is out­stand­ing, and your warm, friendly man­ner was a plea­sure to see.  Any cou­ple who is plan­ning to be mar­ried on a Saturday should rethink their plans so they do not miss out on such a spe­cial oppor­tu­nity as to have you cater their wedding!

Thank you again!

Best regards,

Terri McGee

(a/k/a Mother of the Bride)

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Dear Irena, Mark, and Azafrán Staff,

How won­der­ful it is to have such a tal­ented cater­ing staff & facil­ity con­ve­niently located on the JHU cam­pus. And, even bet­ter, it is sim­ply a delight to deal with each and every one of your staff mem­bers.  It makes plan­ning a depart­ment event sim­ply effort­less on my part — and that is a GREAT thing!

Your food is both cre­ative as well as deli­cious.  The pride that you take in your work speaks for itself — the final prod­uct is quite impressive.

Looking for­ward to work­ing with you again, very soon!

Megan B. Zeller,

Sr. Academic Coordinator, History Department, JHU

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“We have worked with Azafrán on mul­ti­ple occa­sions over the last sev­eral years, on every­thing from depart­ment lun­cheons to small catered meet­ings to our department-wide recep­tion at the start of the school year.  Irena and her staff are able to accom­mo­date our vari­ety of needs, always to the sat­is­fac­tion of our fac­ulty, stu­dents, and guests.  We look for­ward to work­ing with them in the future!”

Rebecca Swisdack

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“I have turned to Azafrán on many occa­sions, for events rang­ing from inti­mate lunches to recep­tions for over a hun­dred guests. Without excep­tion the food has been superb and the ser­vice flawless.”

 William Egginton

Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities

Chair, German and Romance Languages and Literatures

The Johns Hopkins University 

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Irena and Mark wher­ever you are…I wanted to drop a quick note to let you know how won­der­ful the party was.  I had so many com­pli­ments.  It could not have been any bet­ter, so smooth, and per­fectly flowing…Your peo­ple are just fab­u­lous — pro­fes­sional, cour­te­ous, atten­tive — very sophis­ti­cated ser­vice European style. …and last but not least, the food was superb…A great suc­cess indeed, thank you so much.

Antonella

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Dearest Irena (oh, and every­one at Café Azafrán)…

Thank you, thank you, for enrich­ing the cel­e­bra­tion of our mar­riage with your beau­ti­ful staff and your ele­gant cuisine. Azafrán is the best…don’t take our word for it, all of our guests said yours was the bet wed­ding meal they’d ever experienced. Our pho­tog­ra­pher said: ”that was the best salad of my life!” Azafrán has been an expe­ri­ence in itself, and work­ing together to bring to life such a mag­i­cal recep­tion was an addi­tional joy to all of our plan­ning. Thank you mostly for being you; congratulations on being such a unique, and best of all, gen­uine business.

Linsey and Andrew Seegers

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Irena,

If John and I were to get mar­ried again we would be faced with a very dif­fi­cult decision…hire you as our caterer or invite you as a friend. From the day we met you we knew we were going to have the most mem­o­rable wed­ding and we quickly learned that your incred­i­ble culi­nary skills were equally matched by your warmth and thought­ful­ness. You went above and beyond for us and it showed. You cap­tured our vision per­fectly in the food and the room but more impor­tantly we did not worry for a sec­ond about a sin­gle detail. Thank you for being such a won­der­ful spirit and for mak­ing and wed­ding exactly what we imagined.

Love, Leanna and John

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Bonjour! Paris was won­der­ful! Simply being away with John after such an amaz­ing wed­ding (thanks in large part to you!) was so spe­cial. The city, food, sites and sounds of Paris was icing on the cake (or the cro­quem­bouche!). Thank you to you and your staff for putting on a flaw­less party. The room was gor­geous, the staff was so friendly and the food of course was impeccable

Much love,
Leana

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Irena,

The food, ser­vice and staff were excep­tional. I received many com­pli­men­tary remarks about the food and inquiries about your cater­ing group. It was a plea­sure to work with you and I look for­ward to coor­di­nat­ing future events with Azafrán.

Best regards,
Roberta

Roberta Gray, Administrative Supervisor, Office of the Chairman, Department of Epidemiology
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

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Dear Irena:

Thank you so much for agree­ing to do our lunch on what I can imag­ine was a very busy day for you. Everyone loved the food and a num­ber of our stu­dents who know your Cafe were espe­cially pleased that you had pro­vided the lunch.

Cheers,

Christine

Christine A. Ruggere, Associate Director, Institute of the History of Medicine
The Johns Hopkins University

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Dear Irena & Azafrán Staff,

My team was recently selected by NASA to pur­sue the tech­nol­ogy needed to build a new gen­er­a­tion of space telescope-a facil­ity that will fol­low JWST and will allow us to defin­i­tively deter­mine if there are life-bearing earth-like plan­ets in our Galaxy, among many excit­ing prob­lems. This took a lot of hard work and your excel­lent food helped sus­tain me through many long pro­posal writ­ing days and nights! You also pro­vided a deli­cious break­fast for our entire team back in October. Such stress­ful peri­ods often mean sac­ri­fic­ing good food but with Azafrán I know this will never be a prob­lem. Thanks for your part in help­ing our team get good work done!

Cheers,
Marc Postman

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“We worked with Azafrán on a gala event at the American Visionary Art Museum, and we received rave reviews from every­one. The food was fab­u­lous and beau­ti­fully pre­sented, and Irena cre­ated a won­der­ful set­ting for the tables and serv­ing sta­tions, includ­ing drapes and flow­ers. But to me, the best part of the event was the chance to work with Irena, who has such a cre­ative spirit and is a joy to work with. She went way beyond my expec­ta­tions of what a “caterer” offers. I would rec­om­mend her highly for any one (or orga­ni­za­tion) seek­ing to put on ele­gant, deli­cious, and cre­ative event.”

Christina Macy, Director of Publications – International Youth Foundation

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“Bring your tired and weary taste buds to Azafrán! Inspired cook­ery with a Latin American flair, con­sum­mate pro­fes­sion­al­ism, and a seri­ous atten­tion to detail have hall­marked every event, large or small, that Azafrán has catered for me. My only con­cern when using Azafrán is being able to con­firm my date. The rest is cake and I mean EXCELLENT cake!”

Judy Fusting, Johns Hopkins University, Alumni Relations

Azafrán, café & catering | STScI, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 | p 410 338 4757 | azafran AT cafeazafran DOT bizAzafrán on Facebook Alikimia on Facebook Azafrán on Facebook