Meet Joe Decker: The Story Behind Our Artisan Sourdough Bagel

My culinary career has come full circle. I started in this business at 18 years old as an apprentice baker at a wonderful bakery called Ann’s Bakery in Wilmette, IL. At that time, delivering mail was my full-time job. After nine months of making breads, donuts, and cookies, I moved to another bakery in Skokie, IL called Oakton Bakery and worked there for another year.

Realizing that the requirements of a bakery lifestyle would limit me socially, I switched gears and went to cooking school at Washburne Trade School.

While in school, I worked with Chef Yoshi Katsumura at Jimmy’s Place. After graduating, I worked at Café Provençal under Chef Leslie Reiss. Eventually, I joined Lettuce Entertain You in 1986 and became the Chef at Avanzare, and then Chef Partner at Scoozi. I was involved with many other Lettuce restaurants such as the Tucci restaurants, Foodlife, Ben Pao, and Joe’s Stone Crab.

I opened our first Wildfire location in 1995 and helped make the opening smooth. I came back to Wildfire in 1997 as Chef Partner, and developed the food and menu for the next three decades.

My passion for baking never waned. All our desserts at Wildfire are simple and classic, and all are made in-house daily. While at Wildfire in the early years, I had the opportunity to go to Montreal with a friend where he introduced me to a Montreal-style wood-burning bagel. I was fascinated with the process and enjoyed the unique method of the Montreal bagel baked at St-Viateur Bakery.

Years passed and I made bagels at home just for fun for my family a few times. About eight years ago, I became fascinated with sourdough bread, but I didn’t know how to make it. I consulted with an experienced baker, Chef Francis Brennan (another Lettuce Chef Partner), and he got me started.

First, I made the sourdough starter, which took a couple of weeks. I matured this sourdough starter for the next eight years, making numerous loaves of sourdough bread.

The starter gets fed flour and water daily, and it is so gratifying to see it grow—and to appreciate the unique scent that signifies it is alive and well. My sourdough starter is named after my grandmother, Bertha, who was an amazing cook and baker.

Last year, my partner Adam Rochman started to bake bagels at home for fun. After many discussions with Adam and my partner Howard Katz, we decided to rekindle the idea of baking bagels as a pop-up at Wildfire Chicago. We went on some trips to research and strategize what kind of bagels we like and wanted to make.

Now I can finally marry my sourdough experience with my bagel experience and present our version of an Artisan Sourdough Bagel. For the past seven months, I have been baking a batch of bagels every week—tweaking, tasting, and trying many ideas to develop the best version of our bagel.

About Our Artisan Sourdough Bagel

• Made from an eight-year-old sourdough starter named Bertha.
• We use a 72-hour slow refrigerated fermentation for flavor.
• The dough is wetter and softer than a stiff classic bagel dough, which makes a lighter finished bagel.
• The bagels are made with fresh Midwestern milled flour from Meadowland Farms.
• The bagels are hand formed.
• They are boiled and baked the traditional way.
• The bagels have a crisp exterior and a soft, airy, and fluffy interior.
• The bagels are slightly chewy, but not overly tough.
• They are baked at a high temperature for a rich, caramelized appearance.
• If stored properly, the bagels have a wonderful 3–4 day shelf life.

In conclusion, baking these sourdough bagels has been a journey and will continue to evolve. I hope you enjoy our Artisan Sourdough Bagels as much as I have enjoyed baking them!