Like many Capetonians, we have been fans of Woodstock Bakery since day dot. The bakery, owned and operated by Paul à deux (aka Paul Hartmann and Paul Creamer), has its feet firmly entrenched in the Cape Town food scene, and is recognisable on the menus of many of the city’s top restaurants. If you’ve recently eaten at Luke Dale-Roberts’ Naturalis and other establishments such as Chef’s Warehouse, Clarke’s, Culture Club Cheese and The General Store, then you would have tucked into a slice of Woodstock Bakery’s best.

We recently chatted to Paul Hartmann to find out what has changed since we last spoke to the team as they were just starting out almost 2 years ago. The first major change is that they have up and moved to new premises at 15 Brickfield Road in Salt River. Their new home has triple the floor space at 280 square metres and has a purpose built croissant room. Due to the demand for their golden, flaky croissants the need arose for a space dedicated just to those. They now supply 3 varieties of all-butter croissants – traditional plain, 60% cocoa chocolate and almond with frangipane.

They have commissioned a second oven ‘Bella’, that is directly fired (resembles a very large tunnel type pizza oven). They also dismantled and rebuilt ‘Stella’, their first oven, and are now able to meet the demands of their growing client base (we’re sure there is a good reason these very hard working ovens are both named after women!).  More equipment, means more people, and the team has also grown to 13 staff members, each who play their part in hand-making each loaf in the time honoured way that they’ve become famous for. 

The list of customers continues to grow and currently is at approximately 70 – this includes all of the best eateries, delis and restaurants. They also supply bread to The Table Bay Hotel, the Westin Grand Hotel and the Tasha’s group of restaurants in the Cape. 

Exciting news is that they also  have plans to open a very small retail outlet/bakehouse on Brickfield Road, during the last quarter of 2016. Here they’ll present a range of retail/menu items using their breads and a few new sweet items, along with coffee and the like – sounds exciting. Watch this space for more info when the new eatery opens its doors.

If you’ve been inspired to rush into the kitchen and make your own loaf, you can check out Paul Creamer’s recipe for artisanal wheat bread. However, if like us, you prefer it straight out of the ovens from the bakery itself, pop down to the Biscuit Mill or the Oranjezicht City Market at the Waterfront on Saturday to stock up for the week ahead.

woodstockbakery.co.za | 0747977324 | woodstockbakeryrsa@gmail.com