Our story
We started with one oven and an unreasonable obsession with bread.
How it started
2018
Maya rented a railway arch off Willow Street with a second-hand deck oven and a starter kept alive through two house moves. The first week she sold nineteen loaves. The second, sixty. By the following spring there was a queue on Saturdays and a bench outside for the people in it.
The bakery has grown carefully since — a pastry section in 2020, a proper coffee bar in 2022 — but the starter is the same one, and so is the answer to most questions: give it more time.
What we believe
Four things, in order.
Time matters
Nothing here is proved faster than it should be. Fermentation is the recipe.
Ingredients matter
Stoneground British flour, French butter, seasonal fruit. Short lists only.
Technique matters
Laminated by hand, shaped by hand, scored by hand. Every single morning.
People matter
Fair hours, fair pay, and a team that has mostly been here since the beginning.
Our ingredients
Sourced close, used quickly.
Our flour is stoneground in Kent and milled to order. Butter comes from a single co-operative in Normandy. Fruit arrives from New Covent Garden three mornings a week, which is why the danish changes and the cake menu moves with the season. We buy less, more often, and we bake it the same day.
Meet the team
The people who get up first.
Maya Chen
Founder & Head Baker
Oliver Grant
Pastry Chef
Noah Williams
Coffee Director