Posts Tagged ‘London’
Wednesday, December 12th, 2012
On the 1st of December, Brick House turned 6 months old. It’s one of those peculiar instances where the time has gone by in the blink of an eye, and yet it seems like we’ve been up and running for ages.
It’s been a while since I put finger to keyboard about the business, so I thought now would be a good time to update you and remind myself of all the stuff that’s been going on behind the shutters of our little bakery since I did the last Brick House diary post a few months back.
So, since June it seems like it’s been getting busier week on week. We’ve been steadily picking up new business, and our existing clients are ordering more bread. We’re still supplying Franklin’s Farm Shop, Anderson & Co, The Rye and Cannon & Cannon, but we’ve also picked up some great new clients including Green & Blue, Bambuni, Aga’s Little Deli, Fleischmob, Salon, and more recently a couple of places in central London, La Fromagerie and Duck Soup. We also had a great summer supplying the bread for Frank’s bar in Peckham. We’re no longer at The Great Exhibition on a Saturday, and are doing the new Herne Hill market every Sunday instead, which has been fantastic because we’ve met so many lovely people, many of whom we now count as regulars. It’s really become one of the highlights of our week. Oh, and while we’re blowing our own trumpet, we also managed to win The Real Bread Campaign and Jellied Eel Magazine’s London Loaf competition. Still can’t quite believe that one.
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Tags: Bakery, Bread, Brick House, business, Christmas, Dough, East Dulwich, London, Mother, New, Peckham Rye, Sourdough, South East
Posted in News, Opinion | 5 Comments »
Friday, October 26th, 2012
So it’s been a couple of months since I darkened your doorways with a post, so I thought I should come out of hiding.
Brick House has become so all consuming that I barely have time to sleep, let alone keep up with blogging, but I thought I should drop a quick one (so to speak) to let those who don’t know already, that we won the London Loaf 2012!
It’s still a bit of a shock, but we’re hugely proud, and extremely grateful to everyone who voted for us and supported us since we opened. We’d also like to say biggguppp to The Real Bread Campaign & The Jellied Eel who ran the competition, and the judges for the final, Lucas Hollweg, Diana Henry & Victoria Stewart.
If you want to see how it all went down, including a hugely slick little video interview with yours truly, click here. If not, we just wanted to say thanks.
Since the win, there’s been lots going on. We’re having all sorts of interesting conversations with people, looking at how we can move the business forward, updating the website and so on, and we hope to share some of this soon.
So until then…
Tags: Bakery, Bread, Brick House, Competition, Diana Henry, Jellied Eel, Loaf, London, Lucas Hollweg, Peckham, Real Bread Campaign, Rye, Sourdough, Victoria Stewart
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, August 8th, 2012
The wife and I have been meaning to check out Sweetings Fish Restaurant for ages, so on a rare morning off from Brick House last week we went and did just that.
Sweetings is one of those rare restaurants that’s delightfully trapped in time. It’s the kind of place that you wished you’d been going to for years, where all the staff know your name and where you have your own tankard behind the bar. I can totally imagine my dad having a boozy lunch here when he worked in The City.
Sweetings really reminded us of one of our favorite places to eat in San Francisco, The Swan Oyster Depot. It’s got that kind of American generosity you don’t see in many restaurants in the UK. When you sit down the table is loaded with all the sauces and condiments you could ever want (including Tabasco, which always gets points), there’s a big gravy float full of the house tartare sauce, a plate piled high with buttered brown bread, and a load of lemon wedges.
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Tags: Bacon, Crab Cakes, Fish Pie, Fish Restaurant, Ice Cream, Local Hero, London, Old School, San Francisco, Scampi, Strawberries, Swan Oyster Depot, Sweetings, The City, Whitebait
Posted in Opinion, Reviews | No Comments »
Thursday, June 14th, 2012
The last couple of weeks have gone by in a bit of a blur. In fact it was only yesterday afternoon that I realised that I hadn’t done a post for last week or the week before. So like it or not, you’re getting a 2 for 1 today.
After all the oven nightmares and testing, the past fortnight has been all about getting out there, meeting people, and peddling our wares, and it’s been great. We’ve been keeping it pretty focused and local, and it’s been really encouraging to meet so many cafe / deli / shop / restaurant owners who are passionate about not only great food, but also the area.
The bread we make isn’t for everyone, and the fact that we’re small means that it’s hard to compete on price with the bigger bakeries in the area, but we’ve picked up some great clients already, and am hoping this will grow over the coming weeks. So far we’re being stocked at Anderson & Co, a lovely cafe / deli on the Bellenden Road, the rather awesome Jack’s, current holders of East Dulwich’s best sausage roll, the newly refurbished Rye pub, Lordship Lane stalwarts Franklin’s Farm Shop, and the brand spanking new Cannon & Cannon ‘meatery’ in Brixton Village. We’re also in discussions with a few other people who we’d love to supply, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed and our powder dry.
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Tags: Anderson & Co, Artisan, Bakery, Brick House, Brixton Village, Cannon & Cannon, Country White, East Dulwich, Facebook, Frankilns, Jack's, London, Market, POeckham Rye, SE22, Sourdough, The Great Exhibition, The Rye, Twitter, Website
Posted in News, Opinion | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, June 12th, 2012
Antipasto & Pasta is a gem. Known affectionately as ‘the half price Italian’ by the residents of Battersea because it halves it’s prices on Monday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday nights, it’s probably the restaurant I’ve eaten in most often over the course of my life. After returning from the US, we decided not to live in SW11, and despite having lived there for years, I have to say I mostly don’t miss that part of London. In fact the only thing I really do miss is Antipasto & Pasta.
I think the reason I love this place so much is that it’s a real rarity. It’s the kind of good quality ‘mom and pop’ neighbourhood restaurant that you find in the States, but don’t really exist in this country. It’s brilliantly unfashionable, the menu hasn’t changed in the 15 or so years I’ve been eating here, and the food always tastes the same. And I mean that in the best kind of way.
It also has real atmosphere. Not the kind of atmosphere that you get at the latest ‘hot’ eatery where everyone’s frothing over the food and fawning over the genius of the chef, but the cozy, welcoming, buzz and chatter of people really enjoying themselves and their food.
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Tags: Antipasto & Pasta, Battersea, Cannelloni, cosy, familly, green salad, Half Prce, Italian, London, Restaurant, sardines
Posted in Opinion, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, May 29th, 2012
Last week was a MUCH better week, thank f**k. For one thing I finally got to do some proper baking again, which I’ve not really done since I left E5, and secondly I got some pretty awesome news, on which more later.
It was a really important week for me as it enabled me to actually use the bakery and see if everything was in the right place and was working how I wanted it to. Oven issues aside, I was really please with how the week went, and the bakes got progressively better over time as I tweaked formulas and techniques, worked around the oven’s foibles, and jiggled around a few bits of furniture to get the place flowing better.
There’s still plenty to do, but I’m already feeling pretty comfortable, and am hoping that the more into it I get, the better the product will become. Of everything thus far, the Country White and Peckham Rye are coming out the best, both in terms of taste and look. The raisin and walnut and multigrain breads still need some tweaking, and I’m finding it really hard to get the pop and ears on the Peckham Rye rounds that I’ve been able to pull off to great effect in my Dutch oven at home. Saying that, from a purely functional point of view, I have a feeling that the Rye actually works better as a batard shape as it’s more practical for toast, sandwiches etc.
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Tags: Bakery, Bar, Bread, Brick House, Chocolate, Country White, East Dulwich, London, Multigrain, Paul A Young, Peckham Rye, Raisin & walnut, SE22, Sourdough
Posted in News | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012
Not a great week last week. As I’m sure anyone who’s started a business will tell you, there are ups and downs. I’d not given it much thought, but they’re right. And whilst I’m conscious of the fact that I don’t want to moan, no one’s forcing me to open a bakery, this is a diary of sorts so I guess I should present the rough as well as the smooth.
Things started going awry when I was giving the oven a clean down. I noticed that two of the baking stones had smashed during transit. Not a huge issue, I’ve got a warranty so I contacted the seller and am being sent replacements. But then I started setting the clocks, checking the timers on each of the decks and found that three of them were running slow, two seriously so and the other enough to not be acceptable. I also had a suspicion that the decks weren’t getting up to the right temperature. I was beginning to get that sinking feeling.
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Tags: Artisan, Bakery, Brick House, East Dulwich, London, Mono, Oven, Peckham Rye, repairs, Sourdough, Warranty
Posted in News | 1 Comment »
