Sugar High: The Haute 5 Bakeries in London

Britain has a long history of bakeries. From the sweet Eccles cakes, to jam tarts, and custard pies that generations of grandmothers, daughters, and young children have learnt to cook to savory treats such as the Cornish Pasty, sausage rolls, or cheese and onions pies, traditional British bakeries are a thing of every high street or village market throughout the land. Add to that some rich variations from France and sweet treats from the US, and London could easily be the best place on the globe to sample the world’s variations of bakeries. Marie Teather does the honors.

The Flour Station

Jamie Oliver is a shareholder in this bakery, which began in the kitchen of his restaurant Fifteen.

Today The Flour Station supplies London’s leading restaurants, hotels, food halls and delis and are also well known for their stalls at London’s Borough, Wimbledon, Parliament Hill and Queens Park markets.

Inspired by traditional techniques and classic flavors, The Flour Station has developed a range of award-winning breads and pastries, all which are hand-made using authentic baking methods and top-quality, natural ingredients.

There’s a whole range of Sourdoughs, cakes and pastries to chose from including English sticks, a selection of Levains and some tasty Eccles cakes.

See the website for the various locations.

020 8457 2098

www.theflourstation.com

The Hummingbird Bakery

Yes, this is the store that may be credited with bringing the cupcake revolution to London. The first Hummingbird Bakery opened in Portobello Road in early 2004 with an aim of wanting to provide Londoners with an alternative to supermarket cakes and French patisseries.

It didn’t take long for Londoners to realize that they’d been missing out on real cupcakes, fluffy with butter cream icing, moist layer cakes, or genuine American pies for so long, and the rest they say is history.

Hummingbird bakery has since opened two additional stores—one in Soho the other in South Kensington and plans to open a fourth store in 2011.

http://hummingbirdbakery.com

Konditor & Cook

Konditor & Cook, a double act of pastry chef and cook, or sweet and savory food, is the brainchild of German born ‘Konditormeister’, Gerhard Jenne.

Gerhard has a passion for baking and cake decorating. Most famously he invented Konditor & Cook’s trademark Magic Cakes, a patchwork quilt of mini-treats where each guest or party member can have their cake and eat it.

Originally trained in Munich as a pastry chef (or ‘Konditor’) and in London as a ‘cook’, Gerhard and his team have grown Konditor & Cook to six sites in central London.

Each location has its own unique atmosphere and architectural character, but all provide consistently good food using high quality & fresh ingredients. A feast for the eyes as well as for those with a sweet tooth, guaranteed you’ll be like a kid in a candy shop should you wander in a Konitor & Cook.

www.konditorandcook.com

Le Pain Quotidien

Alain Coumont learned about bread as a small child, standing on a chair every Sunday watching his grandmother bake bread. As a young chef in Brussels, Alain could not find the right bread for his restaurant and so he returned to his roots and opened a small bakery where he could knead flour, salt, and water into the rustic loaves of his childhood.

Today with 16 branches across London, Le Pain Quotidien serves simple, elegant boulangerie fare made with organic ingredients whenever possible.

Bread are made today exactly as it there were in the beginning: with only organic stone-ground flour, salt, and water, kneaded and shaped by hand and baked in a hearth under the watchful eye of artisan bakers. Delectable pastries are hand crafted in the patisserie to reproduce the magic of a buttery, flaky croissant and of a dark, fudgy brownie.

See website for various locations.

www.lepainquotidien.co.uk

Euphorium Bakery

With nearly every loaf, bagel, sausage roll, or Swiss roll that Euphorium Bakery sell being baked in their Upper Street bakery, customers are right when they rave about how fresh their produce is.

With nearly twenty types of bread – from the crispy crust and soft warm centre of their French sticks, to the hearty, filling, bitty, English granary – you will be making sandwiches for weeks.

Taking inspiration from British and Gallic bread making, you’ll also find pastries, apple tarts, cheese slices, and Cornish pasties.

See website for various locations.

www.euphoriumbakery.com