Yahoo News London's best bakeries and cake shops
When it comes to bakeries, we've found the creme de la creme.
From superlative choux to doughnuts to die for, by way of mindboggling cronuts and marvellous mille crepes, take a look at our pick of the places serving up the very best baked goods in the capital.
Ottolenghi
The array of cakes and desserts displayed in the windows of Ottolenghi delis across town is awe-inspiring (see above). You can’t really go wrong with the cakes, which change daily, but if you can get it go for a passion fruit meringue tart and the cheesecakes are perfection – we enjoyed a salted caramel and hazelnut one. The Spitalfields location is the biggest Ottolenghi venue.
Cutter & Squidge
This sister-owned Soho bakery looks sweet, but isn't saccahrine. Using no more sugar and fat than they need, their inventive and joyfully decorated offerings are delicately, carefully flavoured. Cutter & Squidge’s Dream Cakes make for jaw dropping centrepieces for your big celebration, or can also be enjoyed by the slice in house – the Lychee Kiss is an elegant flavour trio of lychee, raspberry and rose. For a whimsical version of the full works, you can also join Cutter & Squidge for their Genie’s Cave afternoon tea featuring a 24 carat gold toped version of their Biskies.
20 Brewer Street, W1F 0SJ, cutterandsquidge.com
Crosstown Doughnuts
No longer need we rely on our stateside cousins for doughnut decadence with these guys around. Once a market stall on Leather Lane, Crosstown Doughnuts have opened 5 permanent locations around London in the last 2 years, serving up their unique take on the American classic. Crosstown bake their doughnuts from sourdough, giving them a bread-like texture, topped and filled with myriad intriguing flavours, from Yuzu & Passionfruit to Beetroot Lemon-Thyme.
Dominique Ansel
Four years ago, acclaimed patissiere Dominique Ansel gave to the pastry world the gift it didn’t know it wanted. The Cronut, a cross between a croissant and a doughnut, was hailed by TIME magazine as one of the greatest inventions of the year. This gratuitously enjoyable creation – a ring of sugary, flakey, layered pastry – is now served up in Ansel’s Belgravia bakery with changing monthly flavours – if you’re popping down today, October is banana and toasted oat ganache.
17-21 Elizabeth Street, SW1W 9RP, dominiqueansellondon.com
Bread Ahead
There are few more enjoyable activities than picking up a fresh loaf of bread from a very good baker, but baking it yourself has to be up there. Bread Ahead in Borough Market knows this, and alongside producing their own range of freshly baked fair (you can even watch bakers Matthew Jones and Justin Gellatly hard at work), they also run a baking school for budding breadwinners, teaching workshops on everything from sourdough to stollen.
Borough Market, Cathedral Street, SE1 9DE, breadahead.com
Kova
When pondering Japanese food, patisserie isn’t the first thing that comes to mind – Kova are showing us what we’ve been missing out on. This Japanese bakery in Soho specialises in producing fairly remarkable looking Mille Crepes, a concoction consisting of 15 layers on French-style crepes, sandwiching alternate layers of a custard cream filling. Choose from coconut, vanilla, chocolate and a tantalising green matcha, and pair it with one of Kova’s array of delicate Japanese teas.
Unit 5, 9-12 St Anne's Court, W1F 0BB, kovapatisserie.com
Maitre Choux
Choux pastry is having a particularly stylish moment, with Maitre Choux having provided quite the makeover. Pastry chef Joakim Prat’s South Kensington based bakery produces a glittering (quite literally) array of takes on the éclair, from a lemon meringue and bergamot version to a hazelnut and milk chocolate treasure, which is finished with a sprinkling of gold dust. Shy and retiring, Maitre Choux is not.
15 Harrington Road, SW7 3ES, maitrechoux.com
Scandinavian Kitchen
Much like their design and brooding crime dramas, Scandi baking is becoming more popular in London by the day and the Scandinavian Kitchen is one of the best examples. Their soft, sticky cinnamon buns are my favourite in all of London - order the blueberry, oat and spelt muffin titled ‘studmuffin’, purely for the name.
61 Great Titchfield Street, W1W 7PP; scandikitchen.co.uk
Violet Cakes
This unassuming shop front on Wilton Way hides a charming little café with an open kitchen and big-table shared seating area upstairs, run by Californian Claire Ptak. Icings on their vanilla cupcakes change with the seasons; expect rhubarb in winter, Fragola grapes in the autumn (apparently Claire’s favourite) and summer fruits in – you’ve guessed it – the summer. The chocolate cake with salted caramel icing is divine and a year-round favourite and I’m told that the cinnamon buns are so popular they sell out by lunch.
47 Wilton Way, E8 3ED; violetcakes.com
St John Bakery
The St John group may supply bread to trendy food destinations like Caravan in King’s Cross and do a darn good Welsh rarebit, but it’s their doughnuts we’re really interested in. Pop down to the bakery room on Saturdays and Sundays for a brilliant seasonal jam doughnut (cross your fingers for rhubarb). Ingredients are sourced from independent suppliers, including dairy from Neal’s Yard just down the road.
72 Druid Street, SE1 2HQ; stjohngroup.com
Nordic Bakery
Another Scandinavian import, the Nordic Bakery does a different sort of cinnamon bun to the Scandinavian Kitchen: denser with thinner layers of dough and shaped like a pain au chocolat, but still delicious. Pair one with a strong coffee, a paper and the dark wood and pared-down Scandi-style of the Soho branch and you’ve got some great fika material. If it’s a nice day, take it to go and find a place to perch in Golden Square outside.
14A Golden Square, W1F 9JG; nordicbakery.com
Old Post Office Bakery
This humble old-school bakery is a local Clapham gem and one of the first to go all-organic in South London. The date and walnut bread is that perfect balance of sweet and savoury that makes it great for a grab-and-go breakfast, or, on a sunny weekend, pick up a couple of hot pain au chocolat and eat them as you amble along to the common.
76 Landor Road, SW9 9PH; oldpostofficebakery.co.uk
Lily Vanilli
If you find icing-heavy cupcakes too sickly, Lily Vanilli is your cake holy grail: savoury and sweet are balanced perfectly to create complex flavours, not just an immediate sugar hit. Think pear, thyme and olive oil mini-loaves and grapefruit and polenta layer cake. Tucked away in a gorgeous little courtyard behind Columbia Road flower market, the bakery has bare brick and white tile walls, a fab ‘Vanilli’s’ lightbulb sign and a wooden counter laden with treats. Only open Sundays.
6 The Courtyard, Ezra St, E2 7RH; lilyvanilli.com
E5 Bakehouse
Head to the E5 Bakehouse under the railway arches at London Fields for a changing menu of cakes, tarts and patisserie, from brownies and perfectly-formed raspberry financiers to classic eccles cakes and crème brulee tarts. The seating area is small and, between the open kitchen and trains running overhead, a little noisy, but in a typically east London bustling way. And the pecan pie is – and I’m only slightly exaggerating – the best I’ve tasted this side of the Atlantic.
Arch 395, Mentmore Terrace, E8 3PH; e5bakehouse.com
GAIL’s Bakery
You can find GAIL's in numerous different locations, but the King’s Road one makes the list simply for its classic black shop front that reminds us of a Victorian apothecary. Its cinnamon buns are a little crispier than the traditional soft dough kanelbulle but still delicious, and their chocolate pecan brownies are possibly the best in London.
209 King’s Road, SW3 5ED; gailsbread.co.uk
Balthazar Boulangerie
Stepping into this little gem (found next to the restaurant), with its brushed gold walls, mosaic tiled floors and eclectic soundtrack of blues and jazz feels like simultaneously stepping back in time and travelling to Paris. Highlights are the galettes: the best-selling apple and hazelnut and the seasonal rhubarb and custard both go down a treat.
4-6 Russell Street, WC2B 5HZ; balthazarlondon.com
Fleet River Bakery
As well as serving an ever popular weekend brunch and doling out quiches and sandwiches to the hungry lunchtime crowds, this Fleet River Bakery has a heavily-loaded counter of cakes and bakes. The brownies are a firm favourite, as is the chocolate Guinness cake when they have it, but don't miss the Hummingbird – coconut, banana and pineapple cake with a cream cheese icing – which was sweet-but-not-too-sweet in that dangerous way that means you could eat it all day.
71 Lincolns Inn Fields, WC2A 3JF; fleetriverbakery.com
