Barrington bakery proclaimed best place in Illinois for doughnuts
It's been a busy week for the two sisters who run The Heart of Europe Cafe in Barrington, after the popular website BuzzFeed said they serve the best doughnuts in Illinois.
Kasia Mierzejewska and Emilia Augustyn have been selling their made-to-order signature Spring Donuts - also called chimney cakes because of their tall cylindrical shape - like hot cakes ever since the rankings were published Sunday.
"It's only me and my sister, so you can imagine how much work it has been," Kasia Mierzejewska said cheerfully Thursday afternoon. "We ran out of Nutella completely and didn't have time to go to the store to buy more."
The sisters opened the shop last year after moving from Poland. Mierzejewska said they settled on Barrington because they liked the village's atmosphere.
"We used to live in Warsaw and we wanted to move to a village where we could have a community where people knew each other and supported each other," she said.
The siblings have served a lot of new customers this week, some coming from as far as downtown Chicago just to try their doughnuts.
Along with the doughnuts, the sisters sell sandwiches, coffee, tea and smoothies out of the bakery at 113 S. Cook St.