Adventures: Bakehouse Wanders - Brighton Part 1

Bakehouse Wanders: Brighton

Part 1

As mentioned at the end of the previous post, here's another instalment of Bakehouse Wanders—aren't you lucky! Notice that ended with an exclamation mark, not a question, purely rhetorical.

Today we're off to the seaside. Brighton. An strange eclectic world of liberalism, pebbled beaches designed to be difficult for both walking and sitting, and ninja-trained seagulls. Of course we're here predominantly for the food, spoiler warning, and a tipple too!

This trip was not planned, purely a spare of the moment decision made. 

I booked some leave for my birthday, and while I’m not one for big celebrations, it felt like the perfect excuse to indulge in a spontaneous food adventure.

Off to the Seaside!

There's a chance that social media, which for consists of few for me, possibly has very different algorithm results for you and I—mine stalks me with cooking channels. If yours does too we'd be great friends!

One channel on the YouTube that I watch, and in return get placed in my view is Cupcake Jemma, a fantastic channel, which you should check out—Jemma has a palace of cupcakes called Crumbs & Doilies in London, which I'll definitely review at a later date. 

Anyway to cut my waffling short, a video popped up of Jemma walking around Brighton doing a bakery tour, and I thought that sounds fun!— so I rolled out of bed, trundled through the morning routine, then sleepwalked to the train station to follow suit. 

For me Brighton is about an hour or so by train with a single change required, not too bad. Many years ago my culinary journey could've started earlier, we had the most amazing stand at the train station called the Full Monty, it did the best hot breakfasts cooked to order. They were gotten rid of to put in an overpass between platforms, the old one is still there! I'm never got to forget such treachery, best bacon sandwiches ever made, just poof, gone.

Speaking of stations, Brighton's, okay its not a food scene, but worth a mention—its beautiful, at least inside. I did a google for you, and so I didn't look daft getting it wrong, the station is Victorian, built in 1840. The ceilings are super high, and I assume glass, you really feel the Victorian splendour of design when looking up—take a look at the clock too, not only is it functional, but beautiful too.

We're here for the food of course, now this might take a couple of posts, maybe even a couple of trips, Brighton is a big place! I'm not a city person, but I prefer it to London, and you can tempt me back with yummy treats. 

Growing up I've been to Brighton many times, we used to stay in a motorhome nearby, but that was down the marina end of Brighton, if you know the area, you get what I mean. I've got fond memories of out holidays here, the one that will never fade is the somewhat miraculous misfortune of having a BBQ in the rain, whilst literally the pitches opposite— we're talking yards away, were bathed in bright sunshine; I get that every cloud finishes somewhere, but just literally at the edge of our camping pitch? really? Enough about childhood BBQ mishaps—let’s get back to the Brighton food scene.

For this adventure we're up the town end of the city. The plan of attack was to explore grabbing items from bakeries found and them sampling them at the beach, post beach was to be worked out later.

I think I started at 'The Lanes', its not that I don't know where I started, I've just never figure out where the lanes are exactly. 

Straight up I didn't go in literally every bakery that I passed, money is a thing, and so are calories—I'm not sure which is more important, but both can cause a problem if this adventure is done too meticulously.

I didn't know the area too well, which probably worked in my favour to some extent.

My first stop was a bakery, a little birdie told me that it was worth wandering into. 

Flint Owl Bakery

Address: 24 Bond St, Brighton and Hove, Brighton BN1 1RD 
Website: https://flintowlbakery.com/pages/brighton

It was a mix between the name, the decor, and the bread in the window that drew me in; okay it was foremost the name being a bit of a twitcher— thats the technical term, look it up.

Other than being named after our feathered friends, the bread in the window hits, it was stacked haphazardly, but the loaves themselves were attractive, you could almost taste them before entering on sight alone. 

I really like the aesthetic, inside and out, with the dark teal façade and white tiled interior there was an elegance, yet somehow with a coastal feel.  

One thing I immediately noticed, and became apparent as the day went was the small size size of establishments. Each venue out of necessity had to utilise space effectively—this little owl had managed to pack the seats in without feeling overcrowded, it was quite impressive. 

Being my first stop I wasn't going to be buying a loaf to carry around, so I went for a sweet treat and a coffee. Not knowing what places I would find, I chose a staple favourite, a Cinnamon bun, and a Cappuccino. Generally I'll get a Cappuccino whilst out, I prefer a simple white coffee, but I find that some cafes make the drink something hotter than boiling, which isn't great for walking around in a paper cup. 

The coffee was okay, which if you've followed along on previous adventures— you have? thanks, you haven't? where have you been? and welcome, be sure to go read some others—you'll know that coffee being okay is actually better than the typical bakery experience. Maybe I'm more fussy than I think when it comes to coffee. 

The point however is the food, I'm not sure I would call it a Cinnamon Bun, a Plat maybe? It was nice, just not what I'd expect. The Cinnamon wasn't overpowering, or even strong in all honesty, but I'm thats probably a good thing for a lot of people—Cinnamon can be quite punchy—I bought some Cinnamon Altoids from America, those things can a grown man wince.

As you could tell from the outside invitation this is a bakery that sells bread, but you get the impression that the cakes and coffee experience it the purpose, not patisserie, but the sort you'd expect to see in a cafe, again not an issue but helping you out with expectations.

If I were local and a friend wanted to go for a catchup coffee, this place would be table, thats the feel I got of the place; it'll definitely leave you feeling more comfortable and satisfied than most major coffee chains. As a heads up, there's only one moderate size chain establishment, but as you'll see there was a reason—such a tease, I know.

I'm glad that Google exists and I had a camera on my phone, oh the old days, what did we do? Considering I was on a wander, I wouldn't have had a clue where these places were to tell you about them. The next one I came upon, and it sounded a little different—so naturally I was drawn in.

Vero Gusto

Address: 2 St James's St, Kemptown, Brighton and Hove, Brighton BN2 1RS
Website: https://verogustobakery.com

We're in Italy now, no, we're still in Brighton, but this place I imagine is the Italian haunt of the area. 

Unless you're Italian, in which case its a no-brainer, its definitely the window eye candy and the curiosity that speak to you. Maybe its being from a quieter town, but I don't regularly see foreign bakeries. 

Inside there is indeed an Italian feel, not sure how to describe that but there is. Again the premises is small, but a reasonable amount of seating, I get the impression its not a high footfall area, so you're probably okay rocking up at most times. 

I didn't go for a drink here, I hadn't long finished the last one, and I knew there'd be another in a while. How do I put this, I'm going to avoid public conveniences if I can help it and a dose of Italian coffee won't help that is probably a sound assumption; I'm just going to crack out a stereotype and assume the Italians wouldn't be serving mediocre coffee. 

Not really having much of an idea as to what to expect I had a browse, I chose what I swear said Focaccia, but might've said Pizza, whichever it was, it wasn't—it was really nice but it wasn't either of those, although definitely closer to a vegetable Pizza. It seemed, and was, a solid choice being around lunch time.

I'm going to add in here somewhat tangentially, I admit—I'll explain, bear with me, that I'm very much an introvert. You know how in any TV program where someone, usually a chef, or maybe a host walks into a restaurant and confidently strolls up and has a chat about whats on offer, yeah, that's not me—I'm fully aware those encounters have been prepared in advance and probably reshot several times, but as I say that's not me, but I thought I'd give it a go out of personal challenge, journalistic integrity, I don't really know why but something like that—well, it didn't work brilliantly. 

Not really having a particular fancy or knowledge of Italian sweets, I took the initiative and asked. I enquired with the serving lady as to what was popular, what would she recommend; I did have trouble with the accent, clearly fault on my part and bound to happen from time to time, but the response can probably be summarised as "whatever"— on that basis, I basically picked at random. 

I had a search on the internet to find the proper name off the website, but considering that the slice of Pizza was labelled as Cake, we'll just say what I saw, a Nutella Tart. In hindsight perhaps I should've mulled it over longer to pick something more Italian in nature, but it's what I got. 

I did take pictures, that are around here somewhere, so, umm, yeah, I'd already taken a bite out of the tart before I remembered to take a picture, and also the piping was well done—I'm making this clear because some time had elapsed between purchasing and eating—let's say the piping Nutella isn't to hold after several hours being carried around individually wrapped in a bag. 

I will talk about the Pizza, but despite the photo and time related caveats the tart was very nice, the pastry was crisp and well baked—I was genuinely impressed. I definitely should've picked one of the other fillings, firstly you already know what it'll taste like, and because the amount of Nutella they managed to fit in made the final result possibly too rich, but was definitely the definition of a sweet treat. If you know any Nutella nuts, which apparently there are, just make them a tart of the stuff.

The Pizza, you'll also see in the photo, is as you would imagine. It was nice, nothing spectacular but perfectly reasonable, and would be happy to eat it again. I'd rather eat my own Pizza, don't want to blow my own trumpet, but they're amazing—recipe on this site—but this was fine for a slice when out and about. 

I really enjoyed venturing somewhere different, as I mentioned, there isn't much near me like this. The food was clearly well made, some of the best pastry I've had for a long time, and despite my daft choice and faulty people skills there was an obviously extensive array of what I assume are Italian classics. The only thing that let the experience down for me was the service, maybe it was a quite time, the server was having a bad day, or purely a communication issue, but I did feel like an inconvenience as much as I did a customer. 

I'm unlikely to be in the location again deliberately, I was a bit of a walk from anything particularly noticeable, but if I were, I'd be happy to get a bite to eat again—the combination of something different and the high quality of the food literally leaves a good taste in the mouth. 

End Of Act 1

Now I was going to put three places in this post, but I waffled on so much at the beginning that I'm already beyond what I'm advised is a suitable blog length, so here's what we're going to do; I'm going to wrap this up, and you're going to come along and read the next post for part two—if you're not looking at this fresh, lucky you, enjoy the literary equivalent of box set binging—I know you want to know what happens in part two!