Around London in 56 Bakes
A Vittles London bakery guide, by those who know their bakeries.
This article is part of Give Us This Day: A Vittles London Bakery Project.
This is the penultimate piece in this two-week series. We hope you’ve enjoyed it. To read the rest of the essays and guides in the project, please click here. And please share it far and wide! Note, the guides in this project are for subscribers only.
To read the companion to this guide, the 10 best all-round bakeries in London, please click here.
To find a map of all 66 bakeries in the project, please scroll to the end of the article.
Around London in 56 Bakes
A Vittles London bakery guide, by those who know their bakeries. Illustration by Alex Brenchley.
The history of baking in London is about as long as that of the city itself, with the Worshipful Company of Bakers claiming it ‘subsisted in the city under the Roman occupation’ around 43-47AD. Since then, bakeries have been integral to the structure of the city. Wheat arrived from outside and would reach the outskirts of London where it would be milled (at places like Three Mills by the River Lea), made into bread by bakers, and then sold in the markets. The Great Fire of London, whose aftermath completely reformed the layout of the City, began in a bakery; and many tales of London’s modern immigration could be told in a list of breads, cakes, pies and pastries.
The more recent history of baking in London is similarly tied up with the forces dictating the direction of the city: capital, development, 16:9 verticality and bubbly bread bros. It’s also full of paradoxes: the Chorleywood Bread Process, devised just outside the M25 in 1961 to make more bread more quickly for less money, symbolises how bread used to be; sourdough, with a history spanning millennia, symbolises the woke excesses of modernity. The best baked item at London’s most famous Modern British restaurant is French, Percy Ingle is a figment of the past, and the most mentioned ‘best bakery in London’ on Topjaw is Pophams.
The city remains a panoply of baking excellence, as demonstrated by the 56 places featured here, plus the ten that make up our ‘best of’ guide. There’s truly delicious sourdough, but also Agege bread, Persian sangak and Filipino pandesal. There are London takes on American and Italian pizza, but also pide and lahmacun across north London, and manaeesh in west. Perfect lamination can be found in London’s best croissant or its best rugelach or its best baklava. A fried piece of dough, an item almost universal to every cuisine, could be a hyped, stuffed, American-style ‘donut’, a lokma, a pishi, a sonho, a dumpling, a pączki or a plain sugared doughnut from a neighbourhood bakery that tastes of childhood. Equal pleasure can be found in an exquisite, four-layered millefeuille sold for £14 out the back of the most exclusive hotel in London and a hot dog bun that’s a quid at a Chinatown bakery.
There are many more bakes that could have made into this list on the turn of a block of dough. In order to give us this day our daily bread after all, we must be forgiven of our trespasses.
Contributors
JW – Jessica Wang
JH – James Hansen
JN – Jonathan Nunn
HL – Harry Lambous
AKK – Adrienne Katz Kennedy
AH – Angela Hui
ZyA – Zayneb Al Asaadi
IL – Isobel Lewis
ZhA – Zahra Al Asaadi
IR – Isaac Rangaswami
MC- Mark Corbyn
ME – Melek Erdal
MM – Marie Mitchell
RP – Riaz Philips
CT – Christian Theodorou
RT – Ruby Tandoh
AD – Alex Douglas
AC – Adam Coghlan
GN – Glenn Nunn
KT – Kasia Tomasiewicz
SL – Sadie Lee
EP – Emma Louise Pudge
DL – Dan Lepard
MP – Michaël Protin
Photos are by the author of each entry unless stated otherwise.
Categories
Bready – loaves, pide, pizza, banh and manaeesh
Flaky – croissants, rugelach, baklava and mille-feuille
Cakey – Tottenham, chocolate, panettone and bienenstich
Sweet – pastel de nata, sablés and buns
Savoury – tarts, bibingka, borek and buns
Fried – doughnuts, pączki, bofrot, dumplings and lokma
Bready
Sangak at London Sangaki
There was once a menu on London Sangaki’s website, but it’s been removed, as if they realised that it was little more than trolling. This is since Ealing’s London Sangaki makes one thing – Persian sangak – in two forms, plain, or topped with sesame and nigella seeds, cooked in a rotating metal oven with a pebbled cooking surface, which mimics the river stones that give the bread its name and texture. It is a remarkable feat of engineering, from a bread tradition that took root in the necessary inconvenience of heating hundreds of pebbles to form a makeshift oven. It’s hot every single time. There’s little more to say. JH
5 Leeland Rd, W13 9HH
Banh mi at Banh
A banh mi qualifies as a banh mi because of the bread, not the filling. Whereas a jambon beurre refers to its construction, banh mi alone refers to either a fully-fledged sandwich or the bread itself – never a specific filling. Just one quick WhatsApp photo of Banh’s on-site deck ovens was enough to convince me that this place understood the significance of bread in a banh mi. It turns out that Banh, in Dalston, was the solution to a very personal problem. Christine, Banh’s owner, loved baguettes. However, her sensitive gums did not. In identifying that the future of her baguette consumption was unsustainable, the graduate of Le Cordon Bleu became determined to find her own alternative. It took her a whole year to develop her optimal baguette recipe, but the return on the investment was priceless: exceptional banh mi for life, with a crust that compresses under the mere pinching pressure of an index and thumb, cracking into a mosaic of bread. JW
592 Kingsland Rd, E8 4AH
Pandesal at Panadera
If a restaurant group as vast as Maginhawa – which runs establishments as diverse as Donia, Mamasons and Guanabana – could be reduced to one thing, it would be its sweet, versatile pandesal dough, which emerges somewhere at every one of its establishments in a unique form. Kentish Town’s Panadera, which translates to “female baker” in Tagalog, honours the mothers of Florence and Omar respectively, the bakery’s founders, and pandesal takes centre-stage in untrendy, sweet white bread. Most notable and popular on the menu is its trio of sandos – Japanese-inspired sandwiches stuffed with Filipino-centric fillings like corned beef, although it’s the bread that stands out, its warmth and texture greeting you with a sweet tactile hug. JW
83 Kentish Town Rd, NW1 8NY
Lahm ajeen at Albeit Al Arabi
There are dozens of manaeesh spots within a 50-metre radius of Albeit Al Arabi in North Acton, but the lahm ajeen here stands out as it has succeeded where many others fail by having a dough base that is just the right thickness (many of its neighbours are much too thick) and perfectly cooked meat (there is a prevailing tendency to slightly undercook the meat at many Syrian and Lebanese manaeesh bakeries). The meat is also beautifully flavoured rather than just relying on the taste of lamb to carry it, with hints of pomegranate molasses. This simple trio makes a winning formula that is, as per my extensive lahm ajeen field research, surprisingly rare to find. I like mine topped with cheese and stuffed with complimentary pickles. ZnA
26 Chase Rd, London NW10 6QN, United Kingdom
Spinach manaeesh at Yasmina
I have sampled manaeesh across most corners of London and the Middle East and I am on a never-ending search for the perfect spinach version. In Acton, Yasmina comes closest as it delivers in its ability to provide the tart sourness from sumac and pomegranate-coated onions and citrussy spinach, a concoction that feels like a slap in the face (in a good way), waking you up in a way coffee could only dream of. Even as Yasmina sits directly on the not so glamorous A40, once inside its mint tea and manaeesh will transport you away from the world of Ulez and into a warm, homey embrace. Note: Yasmina is closed until 21st September. ZnA
18 Western Ave, W3 7TZ
Mince flatbread at Ararat Bread
Ararat’s plain and sesame breads, Dalston’s worst-kept secret, can be found at an increasing number of popular street food wrap joints, taken out surreptitiously from plastic bags and passed off as their own. But despite its roaring wholesale trade, the best version is still in person at Ridley Road, on the spot, smeared with a coarse mince that pops with coriander seeds, spun at 33 rpm on a rotating oven and folded back on itself in a swirl that resembles a cinnamon bun made of lamb – crisp and piping hot with the meat just at the point of caramelisation and a small whisper of heat that blooms in the mouth. JN
132 Ridley Rd, E8 2NR
Sujuk and cheese manaeesh at Zeit and Zaatar
There are now many Levantine bakeries in London serving various manaeesh. If you are a fan of these oven-hot flatbreads, then you will surely have your favourite bakery and your ideal topping (zaatar, akkawi cheese and mincemeat are the classic). Zeit and Zaatar has long been mine (the Shepherd's Bush branch is the original but the Ealing is somewhat more spacious) and as well as the usual toppings, it does a sujuk and cheese version which is the regular exception to my never-eating-cured-meat rule. The deep maroon spicy sausage vivid against the bright gooey cheese supported by the flaky flatbread is the savoury baked good of your dreams. ZhA
215 Uxbridge Rd, W13 9AA
Hard dough bread at Cornfield Bakery
Unless you hail from a particular part of deep South London, the chances are you haven’t heard of Cornfield Bakery. But for those who are from Thornton Heath and Croydon, especially those of Caribbean descent, Cornfield has been part of local folklore for decades. It serves the gamut of Caribbean baked classics like Jamaican patties and spiced bun, which provoke long, meandering queues out the door at Christmas and Easter when these are overwhelmingly in demand. That said, what keeps the bakery ticking year round is their staple Jamaican style hard dough (hardo) Bread, a simultaneously firm but soft loaf that goes with anything sweet or savoury. RP
51 High St, Thornton Heath, CR7 8RW
Angels bread at Angels Bakery
Angels calls itself a bakery, though with a bain-marie loaded with jollof rice, Nigerian stews and a constantly roaring grill firing up suya meat, it could really call itself whatever it wants. It does seem though that all these culinary joys are the sideshow to the main seller, which is loaves of soft ‘angels bread’, their own take on agege bread, which pairs fantastically with some Ghanaian shito, a spicy fish paste available from any of the small grocers nearby. Angels bread is available at all the bakery's locations. RP
Agege bread at Agege Bread (London Bakers)
A common theme here for Nigerian bakeries in the UK is come for the bread, stay for the additional bevy of food. Agege bread, simply named after Agege in Lagos, is another classic Nigerian soft-bread favourite, equally as tasty as a sandwich or torn and dipped into a hot stew. Those of Caribbean descent will quickly recognise this as a slightly softer version of the oft-confusingly named hard dough bread. At its namesake in Lewisham - Agege Bread (London Bakers) - the agege bread is especially good. RP
32, Deptford High street, SE8 4AF
Pide (or lahmacun) at Karadeniz Pide & Lahmacun
Karadeniz may be the only place outside the Turkish embassy in London – or the British embassy in Ankara – to display portraits of Atatürk and the late Queen Elizabeth, and of the three, Karadeniz serves the better pide. What is pide? ‘Brother, it’s Turkish pizza but it’s older than the Italians,’ the owner explains to newbies. Either way, the view is the same as that in Di Fara, the legendary New York pizzeria: an elderly person (in this case one of the team of three aunties, who switch between rolling dough, stuffing gozleme and prepping the bases) hunched over the electric oven, paying close attention to the brownness of the dough as if it was a lump needing an accurate diagnosis, and brushing fat (butter, in this case) onto the crusts so each one comes out properly burnished and crispy, a salty longboat of hot dough and hot cheese. JN
253 Hertford Rd, Enfield EN3 5JJ
Vegan Pizza from Your Neighbourhood Za
In his endeavour to create a vegan pizza that wasn't simply a simulacrum of a great pie, home baker Youness of Your Neighbour Za in Turnpike Lane spent 120 days straight crafting and perfecting his vegan ’za. Sweet and slippery pomodoro sauce is smothered with a three vegan-cheese combo of casadei, gondino and plant-based cheddar merging to create a veg-milk magma mottled in all the right places. All on top of a hybrid base and crust, which is quite possibly the apex in corcicione. With a perfect char and chew, glazed in splashes of golden olive nectar, the no-knead wet dough is slow-baked at a 73-77 percent hydration. A pizza so good that it is not just a substitute but a preference for the two days a week (Friday, Saturday, occasionally on Thursdays) he opens his doors. His search for personal pleasure becomes ours. AD
238 Sirdar Road, N22 6QS
Strecci at Toklas Bakery
I recommend visiting Toklas Bakery’s understated and elegant space just around the corner from 180 Studios on the Strand often enough that you learn to alternate between the bitter chocolate honey hockey puck and the tahini ‘cookie’ that is more like a boulder of halva, adding a warm cinnamon bun on occasion. Founded by the Frieze magazine and art fair founders in 2021, Toklas is a good spot to take these things away down by the river and the seating through the back is a nice place to while away an afternoon. If you decide to do so, consider the very good-value strecci, crisp and stretchy flatbread, topped with understated and elegant (yes, again) combinations of ingredients like tapenade and potato or courgette and salsa verde. JH
9 Surrey St, Temple, WC2R 2ND
Pizza, any of them, at Crisp Pizza
In recent months, there has been an attempt to define the pizzas coming out of Gracey’s, Vincenzo’s and Crisp as ‘London Pizza’ – a style distinct to the city, in the same way as ‘New York pizza’, ‘Neapolitan pizza’, or ‘New Haven pizza’ (if New Haven was a real place). Some might argue that two of them aren’t even in London, but more pertinently, it’s not true: these places are anomalies, pizzas with cooked out bases, verging on burnt, that exist in opposition to most London pizza. Of the three, Crisp in Hammersmith stakes the biggest claim to being a new style because it’s so distinct. It’s clearly American-inspired, from the base to the toppings, but with something extra: digestibility, a 0 degree flop, and a crunch that rattles round your skull as you bite in. It is the best pizza London has seen since ASAP, and if they start playing around with the toppings in the same way as Pam Yung did, then we can really start talking about London pizza. JN
25 Crisp Rd, W6 9RL
