At Cossetta’s, panettone is moving upward — literally and figuratively.
Up till now, head pastry chef Jaime Martinez and his team have made the classic Italian Christmas bread in a subterranean bakery under the gelato shop at the St. Paul culinary institution. But starting in December, the company’s panettone operation is relocating up to the second floor of Cossetta Eventi, the company’s catering space on Exchange Street, into a custom-built, 15,000-square-foot panettone production facility.
In conjunction with the move, said owner Dave Cossetta, the company is launching an e-commerce platform Dec. 1, at cossettas.com, to ship panettone nationwide year-round.
Cossetta head pastry chef Jaime Martinez pushes an inverted cooling rack of panettone loaves on Nov. 20, 2025, at the new bakery facility dedicated to the Italian bread. Led by Martinez, panettone made by the Cossetta’s team won first place across North and South America at a recent competition. (Jared Kaufman / Pioneer Press)
Panettone is famously difficult to master. The treat is a round loaf that starts with a fermented “mother” dough like sourdough, but with a buttery texture that rivals the silkiest croissant. Loaves are flavored with orange and vanilla and speckled with candied fruit, and they cool upside-down in specialized racks so the domed tops don’t collapse. Start to finish, a single batch takes anywhere from 50 to 70 hours and requires near-constant attention.
“This ain’t for the weak at heart,” Cossetta said after a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new kitchen space. “We’re serious.”
And already, Martinez and his team make the best panettone on the continent: In September, team Cossetta’s swept at the biannual Panettone World Cup Americas Division, winning the top prize for traditional panettone in the U.S. for the fourth consecutive time and being named the best panettone overall across North and South America.
During the ribbon-cutting event on Nov. 20, St. Paul Mayor-elect Kaohly Her lauded Cossetta’s success at producing traditional foods like panettone as a win for St. Paul and an example of the long-term rootedness of immigrant-founded cultural business in the city.
“Not only is this a validation of the dreams that our ancestors bring with when they start something new, but it’s also a validation of our city — that we can grow businesses, grow restaurants that produce products on this level,” she told the crowd of about 200.
Cossetta’s new panettone kitchen includes both must-haves — a humidity-controlled environment for the fermented “mother” dough; rotating proofing boxes and ovens; a mixer that can hold about 500 pounds of dough — plus some new bells and whistles. With a roller coaster-esque chain lift, one particularly staggering contraption elevates the gargantuan mixing bowl about eight feet in the air and slowly rotates it, dumping the dough cleanly onto a wooden work surface so chefs don’t have to manually transfer a quarter-ton of dense dough before shaping it into loaves by hand.
And from the new kitchen, Dave Cossetta hopes Martinez and his longtime team of panettone chefs Rafael Morán, Ariana Anaro Montoya and Carelys Santeaga — who between them have more than seven decades of pastry experience at Cossetta’s alone — can launch the bakery’s panettone upward in the global World Cup rankings.
A half-loaf of Cossetta’s panettone sits on a pedestal alongside a trophy on Nov. 20, 2025, at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the company’s new panettone bakery facility. (Jared Kaufman / Pioneer Press)
Cossetta’s win at the Americas Division this fall qualifies the team to once again compete at the Coppa del Mondo del Panettone, the world championships, in Milan next fall. Martinez and Morán also qualified to bring Cossetta’s panettone to the World Cup in 2024 but did not earn a medal. In March, Ton Cortés, the renowned Barcelona baker who won the 2024 World Cup, spent about six days at Cossetta’s, helping Martinez and the team test batches and refine recipes.
Traditionally, panettone is only served around Christmas. Cossetta’s sells a smaller pound cake-sized version of the treat year-round, but Dave Cossetta hopes the high quality of Cossetta’s classic panettone will turn the domed cakes into a regular treat, too. And if you ask the people who make it, the plan seems to be working.
“Panettone is getting more demand now than ever,” Morán said.
Panettone is on sale now at Cossetta’s in St. Paul (211 W. 7th St.; 651-222-3476) starting at $42.95 and is set to be priced for e-commerce at $79.95, including shipping and a gift box.
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