Baking-mad Karsten Krivenko has realised a dream of opening her own kitchen with the launch of Tribe Road Kitchen in Hamilton.The new eatery, which is located on the corner of King and Reid Streets, serves everything from tasty breakfast and lunch sandwiches to sweet cakes, cookies and othe treats, as well as a fine selection of teas and coffees.Ms Krivenko, who attended the Culinary Institute of America and trained as a pastry chef, worked in Atlanta and Key West, and also for a French master chef, before discovering her passion for baking.Having rented a kitchen at Rock Island Coffee as the ‘Barefoot Baker’ (a name she attributes to her hatred of wearing shoes), she went on to work out of a satellite kitchen taking online orders and selling her wares at the Farmer’s Market.“I had been planning this for six years now,” she said. “But trying to find the right space here in Bermuda is really difficult.“Funnily enough, my son’s grandmother Dana Goodfellow opened up the Windjammer Gallery here with a friend and then it was Great Sound.“They were getting ready to knock the wall down but we came in and took the place for a favourable rent and completely renovated itself ourselves.”Ms Krivenko and her husband gave the place a lick of paint, stripped down the wooden floors to restore the 200-year-old Bermuda cottage to its former glory and brought in a load of recycled furniture such as head boards salvaged from the dump, tables and chairs, as well as couches bought on eMoo.Dividing her duties between the back end operations in the kitchen and at the front line behind the counter, Ms Krivenko and her team of five pride themselves in producing different specials every day, fresh bread and fish sandwiches on Fridays, home-made focaccia, in addition to peanut butter and Oreo cookies, layer and cup cakes throughout the week.“Everything we make is done with love, care and attention,” she said.“I believe that Bermudians have been ripped off for a long time now and we want to offer our customers better value for money with healthy sized portions.”Meanwhile medicinal herb expert Connie Frith-Black will be providing a range of teas.There is also a garden complete with a lawn, hula-hoops for the children, with tomatoes and herbs.“Our aim is to create a hand-crafted kitchen where everything is fresh and full of flavour,” she said.“We are trying to make it different to anything else in Bermuda and more like something you would find in San Francisco or London. We want to offer real Bermudian food with a twist. It’s been a real labour of love for us and it is a long-term dream come true.”The new cafe, whose name came from off the beaten path road rural roads that separate properties across the Island, has only been open two weeks but has already been doing a thriving trade in a good catchment area between Sir John Swan’s 141 Front Street building and the new court building. It has even been well-received by some of its competitors, with the management at Juice ‘n’ Beans sending Ms Krivenko a congratulatory bouquet of flowers.Ms Krivenko said that despite the recession, she was confident her business would do well as everybody needs to eat at the end of the day.“People always need to eat and during the recession people are working longer hours and have less time to cook so they are eating out,” she said.“I think at the moment people are more apt to spend money on a cookie than buy a new sweater, for example.”In the future, Ms Krivenko, whose cafe already sells beer and wine, plans to launch a happy hour, cheese tasting evenings and a monthly or bi-monthly supper club.Tribe Road Kitchen is open Monday to Friday between 7am and 5pm and on Saturday from 9am to 3pm.For more information email barefootbaker[AT]transact.bm or visit www.thebarefootbaker.com or Tribe Road Kitchen on Facebook