Legendary baker Richard Hart is returning to his native London next week to open the new Claridge’s Bakery, behind the Mayfair hotel in Brook’s Mews.
Now based in Mexico City, Richard began his career as a chef before discovering the allure of sourdough baking and rising to become head baker at Tartine in San Francisco for seven years. In 2018 he founded Hart Bageri in Copenhagen in partnership with René Redzepi of Noma, and now has 11 outlets across the Danish capital.
While sourdough fans will want to test whether he can reproduce the loaf that has been hailed as the world’s best – Richard himself admits he only gets it just right once or twice a year – the menu he has created for Claridge’s has a distinctively local flavour. Savouries include Marmite cheese straws, Hampshire pork scotch eggs, quiches, bloomers, granary loaves and ‘the ultimate Claridge’s sausage roll’, while sweet pastries range from Bakewell and custard tarts to Jammy Dodgers, lardy cakes and malt loaves.
He says: “My goal is to celebrate timeless British baked favourites in one of the most notable British institutions.”
Claridge’s Bakery is scheduled to open next Wednesday, 21 January.
Meanwhile, former Dorchester pastry chef Michael Kwan (who has also worked at Hakkasan and the Fat Duck) this week opened an Asian-inspired bakery called Onsu in Dean Street, Soho, where highlights include black truffle toast, wagyu beef curry buns, salted egg yolk millefeuille, and an oolong and milk chocolate tart.
Further east in Leyton, Farha (“joy” in Arabic) opens today in an old garage opposite the Drapers Field recreation ground, with a kitchen run by Vanessa Campanelli, who co-founder of the area’s much-missed Morny bakery and previously worked under Cedric Grolet at The Berkeley.
