Lunko has only been open for a few days, but people are already queueing out onto the streets for its pastries.
The bakery is the first venue from married couple Adelina Blanaru, 28, and Marius Dogaru, 29. Originally from Romania, they moved to Kirkby in 2015, after briefly living in Paris while Marius trained as a pastry chef.
The two launched popular bakery The Butterholic during the pandemic, taking online orders and supplying venues across Merseyside. This month, they have opened Lunko - their first shop.
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Found on Little Parkfield Road in Aigburth, just off Lark Lane, Lunko had a 'soft launch' last week. It is currently enjoying its first weekend of full service and it has already won many fans.
Adelina told the ECHO about how Lunko came about.
She said: "Marius works on the production side. He used to be a football player in Romania but he suffered an injury and had to change career.
"He then took a trip to Paris to visit his brother, who worked in a bakery. He was fascinated by that and thought it could be a career for him. A year after he took that trip, he decided to move to Paris.
"He stayed there for a few months. On our one-year anniversary, I quit university in Romania and moved to Paris to be with him while he was training.
"He trained in Paris for a year, we then briefly moved back to Romania and then we decided to come to Liverpool because my parents were living here already. We thought we would give it a try."
After moving to Merseyside, Adelina found work as an environmental protection officer and Marius had a number of jobs as a baker. However, during the pandemic, the two launched their own venture focused on Marius' pastry skills.
Adelina said: "We started The Butterholic in the pandemic. We thought that we were going to start on a very small scale and just set up a home bakery.
"We started giving pastries to our neighbours and to our friends and family. But it quickly escalated - Marius was contacted by coffee shops, by other customers, so we set up a website to arrange weekly deliveries and to supply venues.
"Once we had that, the space we had in our home kitchen was just too small, so we decided to convert the garage into a kitchen space. We couldn't find any available units, so we just bought some equipment and turned the garage into a kitchen.
"After a while, even that was too small. Luckily, we found a unit in Speke and we decided to set up there. The business expanded - we were contacted by other locations from all over - Wirral, Crosby, Formby - and we also had a really good success with weekly deliveries.
"We had really good support from the community in Kirkby as well, a lot of people collected boxes. It was really great for us to see that support.
"So then we recently decided to go for a shop as well. This was a very, very big challenge for us because we've never had a shop. So we had an opportunity to take over the place near Lark Lane and we thought 'why not, let's give it a try'."
Lunko serves a range of pastries, including filled croissants and Portuguese favourite pastel de nata, as well as fresh sandwiches and coffee. A long time coming, opening Lunko has been the couple's dream.
It has started well - they were busy during the soft launch. This weekend, Little Parkfield Road has seen queues along the street, as people flock to the new opening.
The two are excited for what lies ahead.
Adelina said: "Since March, we've both been working on the Lunko opening. I work full time as an environment protection officer, so I've been working on evenings and weekends and helping out as much as I can while Marius works on the production side, working on recipes and new products.
"We did a soft opening on Sunday last week. We didn't announce it or anything, we just opened the doors and gave it a go.
"We didn't expect so many people to come. We thought there would be just a few people but we were so, so busy. It was amazing and it was such an incredible experience, all of our team were there.
"Now we've decided to open three days a week for the time being - Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This is because we're also waiting for another baker to start, which will hopefully be in July. Once he starts, we will hope to open Thursdays as well. We do have to have everything in place for that.
"We're very happy where we are. We've always been attracted to Lark Lane, it's such a vibrant area. We've always loved it since we first visited it.
"Now we have the shop, we're hoping to come up with new and exciting products, but we want to be a bakery for the community. We do listen to what people suggest to us - we just want to create a really nice vibe and serve really, really good food."
Lunko is found at 1A Little Parkfield Road, Aigburth. It is open on Friday to Sunday from 10am-4pm.
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