Note: This is the first of a series of articles, entitled first hand, about bakeries where I have been involved the breadmaking (and usually only that), and where I feel there is something of interest for readers. So though I will share a fondess for the bakery, it's staff and techniques, the story will inevitably be slightly biased because of that involvement. Hopefully these articles will help you learn something about the inside working of other bakeries. DL

January, 2005

Look down through this white tunnel and you'll see, at the far end, a glass wall that overlooks a cobbled pathway between the backends of two houses. Plonked in the middle, behind the glass wall, is a clipped bay tree, a tight ball of branches and leaves sitting atop a slender trunk, and on a bright day the light catches it in a lollypop silhouette. So you look down through all this whiteness and spy a rather sweet, old-fashioned view, a backlit image of an English garden bordered by the stark modern walls of an urban hallway. "One of the first things people do," says Yotam Ottolenghi, "is walk in through the door and go straight down to the end. And just stare through the window.".

above, sticks of stirato sit upright in an old wooden tub. In front are grilled spears of asparagus.

Ottolenghi the place, rather than the person, was the inspiration and effort of a few rather talented people. Yotam Ottolenghi, a pastry chef at Kensington Place restaurant, left to run the pastry section at Baker & Spice in Knightsbridge. It was there he became friends with traiteur chef Sami Tamimi, and pastry chef Jim Webb.

Jim was the first to leave Baker & Spice. He took a break from kitchen work and went off to learn how to sail. Yotam and Sami, though, left to open a place of their own next, a place that served the food their friends would like to eat; in a space designed to reflect their own, rather than their parents, taste. Yotam wasn't deeply rich with money to spare, but was a working chef who decided to take the plunge and go off on his own. So, following in the footsteps of most new businesses, armed with savings and goodwill loans from friends and family, he went together with his business partner Noam Bar and Sami to find a site for their business.

They looked at lots of places around London. At first, they made a pitch for an old bakery in Hampstead. But the owners wanted a ton of money for the lease, and as this was a small start-up business, that simply wasn't an option. But another site finally came up, in Ledbury Road, Notting Hill, a former deli that had the basic store area they were looking for, but with a large open kitchen downstairs that could be used without too much alteration

above,a cornmeal rich Pain au Levainsitting on an oak cutting board at the front of the shop

The existing space was white, plainly decorated, and in part the inspiration for the store's current appearance. It was architect Alex Meitlis, a friend from Yotam's early days in London, who took that existing clean look and gave the space light and purpose. "Alex had always been so supportive of my work, and he'd say to me, 'one day you'll have your own place, and it will be excellent'. So I didn't think of using anyone else, I just wanted to let him be part of it". So Alex planned to enhance the simple design left by the previous owner, Charlie Bradley, and create a bright, light, uncluttered background that would allow the food to stand out in a colourful relief. This look has become part of Ottolenghi's identity, even part of their success.

It's now 2 years after that initial design, and I'm sitting with Yotam in the new restaurant + patisserie + bakery, smack down the Highbury end of Upper Street, the ramblas of London's Islington. The same bright, white look has been heightened and elongated, the super-sized version of the old Ledbury road store. "I wasn't sure at first, I really wasn't sure about all the white and starkness", says Yotam, as we sit having coffee looking around at the new space.

above, Jim Webb, Mariusz Uszakiewicz
and Colleen Murphy at Ottolenghi