Fervere Bakery has operated at the peak of Summit Street for seven years, in a sleepy but slowly reviving Westside neighborhood. “This is a great little cohesive neighborhood, with the most wonderful mix of people possible,” owner Fred Spompinato says. “It’s close and friendly, and I’ve never seen any trouble.”

The Name “Fervere” reflects Spompinato’s appreciation of handcrafted bread. A form of a Latin verb that literally means, “ to ferment,” it figuratively means, “to have passion.” It’s also the root of the English word “fervor.” The bakery is open only on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Arrive soon after it opens at 11 a.m., for the best selection, because the bakery only sells bread until 150 to 300 fresh loaves have disappeared. And that’s just how Spompinato likes it.

He’s already tried the commercial route. Spompinato worked at Monterey Baking and Pacific Baking, and then he opened Farm to Market Bread Company with co-owner, Mark Friend, in 1991. But the pace and style required to produce massive quantities of bread didn’t suit him. So after Spompinato traveled and studied bread baking for a year, he opened Fervere. He has just a few commercial customers – including his neighbor with the other yellow door, Blue Bird Bistro; Lill’s on 17^th; and The American Restaurant. Most customers are walk-ins.

Spompinato sells less and enjoys himself more here. But you won’t often find him selling his European-style loaves to customers; he has sales clerks for that. And Spompinato has already pulled a long night shift with his two baking cohorts by the time the shop opens each day. A large mixer is the only piece of mechanized equipment used in the bread-making process, creating an almost hand-mixed quality. The crew of three proofs the wettest raw dough in Belgian linen so it rises perfectly and hefts each hand-formed loaf into the brick-limestone oven using oversized wooden paddles that resemble canoe accessories.

“I think the oven forces you to think differently about bread,” Spompinato says. “There’s a community feel. It’s actually how the Romans baked. You preheat the mass of the oven for hours and hours, which stores the heat and then bakes the bread. This is not a production oven, and I like it because it’s ancient. I think we’re the only bakery in the Midwest that uses this kind of oven, except maybe in Chicago. I wanted to put the oven in this sort of community.

“Being a bread baker means being a night owl. The mixer starts at 3 p.m. From 6:30 p.m., we’re dividing and shaping [the loaves]. By around 10 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., we begin baking and we finish around 3 a.m. to 4 a.m., in our slow season.”

At $3.75 to $4 per loaf, Spompinato’s bread is a steal and a treat. Each recipe is original and organic, from the rough-hewn chewy and airy Ciabatta bread to dark, seed-and-grain-packed travel bread to olive-rosemary bread, with bits of pungent, fresh rosemary and savory Kalamata olives. Polenta bread absorbs a French toast wash like a parched construction worker downing and after-work beer.