A bagel shop that got out of hand
We started with one oven, a borrowed mixer and a rule about not baking twice. Six years later we still only bake once, and the rest of it has grown around that.
It began as a stall that ran out too early
Tom sold bagels from a trestle table on Churchfield Road on Saturdays. He made ninety and they went by half nine, which felt like a triumph for about three weeks and then began to feel like a problem. People had walked over and there was nothing left for them.
The obvious fix was to make more. The less obvious one was to make them better, in a place with a door, where people could sit down. We took the lease on the High Street in the November and opened the following March with a counter, eleven seats and no idea what we were doing.
The name is not a metaphor
Lime and rosemary went on the first bagel because that was what was in the kitchen. Lime zest through the cream cheese, rosemary in the salt on top. It was meant to be a one-off for a market stall and it turned out to be the thing people came back for.
So we kept going. Dill through the cure. Mint in the cooler. Tarragon in the chicken. There is a trough of thyme by the back door that we are objectively bad at maintaining. None of this is a concept — it is just that herbs are cheap, they grow four streets away, and they make plain things taste deliberate.
“Herbs are cheap, they grow four streets away, and they make plain things taste deliberate.”
One bake, early, and then it is gone
Every bagel we sell is made the day you buy it, from dough mixed the afternoon before. We do not bake again at lunchtime to keep the shelves looking full. It means we sell out, often by two, and it means the last bagel of the day is as good as the first.
What is left at half two goes in a box on the end of the counter at half price. What is left when we close goes to a local food project. Neither of those is a marketing exercise and we would rather not be congratulated for them.
Twenty-two seats and a bench
The shop is one room with a hard floor and a tin ceiling, which means it is loud between eight and ten and pleasant at almost any other time. There is a level entrance from the street and no step anywhere inside.
We do not have a table service, a loyalty app, or a policy on laptops. Sit as long as you like. The filter coffee is refilled free while you are sitting in, which is either generous or a way of keeping people in the room, depending on how you look at it.
It takes a day and a half, most of which is waiting
The night before
- 16:00
- Flour, water, honey, salt and a little yeast into the mixer. Eight minutes.
- 16:30
- Into the cold room at four degrees. Nothing happens for a while, which is the point.
- 22:00
- Last check on the dough temperature. Lights off.
The morning of
- 05:00
- Dough out, divided by hand into 110g pieces, rolled and joined into rings.
- 06:15
- Forty seconds a side in honey water, then straight into rosemary salt.
- 06:30
- Twelve minutes at 240°C. The first tray is out before we unlock the door.
- 07:00
- Open. Whatever we made is what there is.
Tom Whitlock
Owner
Started the stall. Does the ordering, the herbs and most of the washing up.
Nadia Okonkwo
Head baker
Runs the bake and the cold room. In at five, gone by one, and the reason it works.
Marguerite Aluko
Rosemary
Not staff. Grows the rosemary on a roof above the launderette and sells it to us by the bag.