FoodStuff: Baking, pleasure and pain
John Lethlean
Phillippa's Breads, Pastries and Provisions [©Phillippa's]
For all the heartache and frustration that goes with being the parent of young-ish children, there are undeniable moments of joy. The unexpected kiss; the little act of consideration that makes you swell with pride; the moment your nine year old junk food junkie comes down for breakfast on a Saturday morning and asks “have we got any good bread, dad?”
Say, what?
Was that the Difficult Eater asking if we have any proper sourdough? The kid who professes to prefer the manufactured muck that takes up valuable freezer space, sitting there in its gaily coloured plastic bags, over bread that is made from natural starters, risen slowly (time is anathema to industrial baking, ally of the purist), and baked with care?
I’ve talked about bread here before. It’s very important. I’d rather look at a gnarly, unevenly coloured, crisp-shelled, ragged-cut loaf of bread than most things. I thrill to the alchemy that is the combined result of flour, water, yeast, heat and a pair of skilled baker’s hairy hands. And Heaven knows I’ve browbeaten the boy and his sister about mass-produced, just-add-water (and maybe some Omega 3) rubbish.
In the case of the youngest, it was like water of a confit duck’s back. Or so I thought.
Almost weeping with joy, I grabbed the keys, borrowed $10 from the hungry little devil, jumped in the car and whizzed down to our nearest Real Bread Baker. When you turn a corner like this, you keep driving, hard.
Back home we had proper toast; I don’t care much that he put chocolate- hazelnut spread all over it, and if the truth be known, I’m just plain jealous he can eat all that fat and sugar. It was the recognition of quality that mattered.
The point of all this?
Finding somewhere to whiz down to has become so much easier. There has been a relative explosion in small, independent bakeries in Melbourne. Not just good bread producers but great ones. They have added to a core of established providers who retail from their own premises and distribute to specialist retailers, as well as wholesale to the restaurants that give a fig.
Recently, visiting two different diners, I found out about two more; wholesaling to restaurants seems to be an important way of building a brand for a baker. And two exciting new bakeries in a week is a veritable tsunami of sourdough.
One – noisette - is in Port Melbourne, where Breton David Menard – a fifth generation baker, by the way – is producing loaves, baguettes, patisserie and all that Gallic stuff very, very well.
“My great grandfather started to bake at home in 1825 for his neighbour. Word got around and such was the demand for his bread that he started the first bakery of the Menards, which began the curse of the bread.”
Menard was head baker for the Laurent company in Melbourne for seven years before going out on his own “to get back to my roots, far from industrial production” last year. Like many of his peers, Menard uses nearly all organic flours, and as little commercial yeast s he can get away with, relying instead on long, natural fermentation.
The other, Wildflour, is in North Fitzroy, the venture of Kiwi Tony Rees – a chef and one-time restaurateur back home - and his partner Belinda Ross. He learned to bake here under mentor Chimmindah Silva, who started Richmond’s Chimmy’s, as well as with usual suspects Daniel Chirico (St Kilda) and Tony Dench (North Fitzroy). His dark, complex crusts stand apart from many of his competitors in appearance and equal any of them for flavour, combining a number of different flours for a very good result.
His organic rye-based grain loaf is a standout.
Add these names to a list that includes Knead (Hawthorn) and a number of different businesses retailing bread baked at the Abbotsford convent - not in the same league, but worthy all the same – plus some interesting product circulating via the farmer’s market network, and you can see why I think this has been a watershed year for bread in Melbourne insofar as turning back the commercial tide.
Or maybe I’m just excited over the kid.
My kind of bread:
Baker D. Chirico, 149 Fitzroy St, St Kilda 9534 3777
Noisette, 84 Bay Street, Port Melbourne, 9646 9555
Wildflour, 422 George St, Fitzroy, 9419 1391
Dench, 109 Scotchmer St, Fitzroy North, 9486 3554
Babka, 358 Brunswick St, Fitzroy, 9416 0091
More fine bread:
Phillippa’s, 57 Crown Street, Richmond, 9428 5363 (Saturday factory outlet)
Knead, 396 Burwood Rd, Hawthorn, 9819 5883
Pure Bread, 114 Union Rd Surrey Hills, 9836 3789
Hope Farm Organic Bakery, www.hopefarm.com.au (farmers markets)
Loafer Bread, 146 Scotchmer St Fitzroy North 9489 0766
Much better than the franchises:
Convent Bakery,1 St Heliers St, Abbotsford, 9419 9426 supplying Chapel Bakery, 753 Glenferrie Rd, Hawthorn 9818 2003; 369 Bay St, Port Melbourne, 9676 2002; and Chimmy's, 342 Bridge Rd, Richmond, 9427 1391.
From a collection of John’s food writing 2005-2008.
Follow John Lethlean and Necia Wilden on Twitter as they eat and drink their way around Australia
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