13 of the most exciting chefs in the world of pastry and bakery right now

Anna Higham​

When many people think bakery, they probably think croissant. Curiously, the classic flaky French pastry won’t feature on the menu at Quince, the Islington bakery being launched by Anna Higham in partnership with hospitality professional Paris Barghchi. For Higham, whose background encompasses stints at Gordon Ramsay’s Petrus, The River Café, and in the bakery section at James Lowe’s Lyle’s and Flor restaurants for a time, the croissant is not a breadwinner. “I’ve been thinking about creating a business that’s sustainable for me in the long term,” she explains. “And that means we need products with a good gross profit. Croissants take up a lot of time, people, power, space and butter, and the markup is hardly worth it.” ‘A traditional British bakery’ is how she describes her vision for Quince. “For a long time, bakeries here have been heavily influenced by French and North American baking. The sourdough a lot of bakeries make is Tartine sourdough, which taught a lot of bakers to make. There’s also plenty of influences from Danish baking. But we have such a rich and amazing baking culture and history here in the UK, and there’s so much room to explore that.” Bread will be the cornerstone of Quince’s offer, made exclusively with UK grown stoneground flour alongside yeasted buns baked each morning, oat cookies, and wholegrain palmiers. There will also be wholegrain hand-pies with sweet and savoury fillings, tarts, and gluten-free cake available by the slice. Higham’s ambition for Quince is simple. “Singular and exceptional is the aim,” she says.

Helen Evans​

Over in East Dulwich, Helen Evans, who worked alongside Higham at Flor and later took over as head of bakery there, has just opened her own venture. Called Eric’s – named after both Evans’ dad and grandad – the bakery is a reflection of her career, which has seen her spend time working in Paris, Melbourne, and Lima. “Without wanting to sound arrogant, Eric’s is all about me,” says Evans. “I love what I do, and I’ve loved baking ever since I set foot in my first bakery.” Eric’s has a lot in common with a traditional French patisserie, serving a broad range of croissants, pastries, breads and tarts. The menu changes regularly, although there are staples including the barley porridge bread and laminated brioche buns that both proved popular at Flor. Despite only being open a few weeks, the draw of Evans’ bakes is clear, with customers regularly having to queue and the bakery often running out of produce before the end of the morning. Bolstering the bakery’s revenue is a streamlined retail offering overseen by Evans’ partner and Flor co-founder John Ogier, which offers store cupboard items including wine, cider, and olive oils. Then there’s the planned workshops. Classes already scheduled include ones focused on sourdough, pastry, lamination, and chocolate work. Each workshop will host between six and eight people, with both intermediate and advance classes available.

Tom Stafford​

2023 is shaping up to be a busy year for Tom Stafford. Back in February, he brought his Leeds-based sugar doughnut concept Doh’hut to London for the first time, launching a site on Exmouth Market under a franchise partnership with Lionshare Group. The offer is tight, with a limited selection of signature fillings such as g raspberry jam, vanilla crème patisserie, and chocolate ganache, which are available alongside regularly-changing specials. The opening marked a significant step for Stafford, who originally established Doh’hut as a street food brand on Leeds' Trevelyan Square in 2020. It’s clear there’s an appetite to grow the Doh’hut brand; even before the Exmouth Market opening, Lionshare already had offers on at least two further London sites, in Covent Garden and South Kensington, with more expected. Stafford’s idea to build a brand around doughnuts stemmed from what he saw as a gap in the market. “I wanted to do a dessert-focused street food truck, and it was mainly churros and crepes within the space,” he says. “I wanted to do something that related more to me and had an element of nostalgia. I grew up eating sugar doughnuts by the beach, and so it felt like a perfect fit.” The concept proved successful and saw Doh’hut triumph in the ‘best of the best’ category at the 2018 British Street Food Awards. Stafford recently launched a second business, a sandwich concept called Things In Bread located next door to his Doh'hut site in Leeds serving a menu of 'classic' deep-filled sandwiches. In terms of expansion, Doh’hut is where Stafford’s attention lies but as Things in Bread shows, he has other ideas too. “The ultimate aim is to have a collection of different concepts, all based around dough.”

Darcie Maher​

Darcie Maher can still remember the first bake she ever nailed. It was a chocolate cake, one with flaked almonds mixed through the sponge and a chocolate ganache poured on top. “I used to love making that,” she says. Born and raised in Edinburgh, Maher was only about four when she first found her passion for baking, and since then it has been the only career path she’s wanted to pursue. “There’s something very calming in the idea that if you do everything right at every point in bakery, it will turn out beautifully. That’s something that really struck me when I was little.” Now in her mid-twenties, she is finally about to see her dream of owning her own bakery realised with the launch of Lannan in the Edinburgh suburb of Stockbridge. It will operate under a partnership with the Edinburgh Butter Company and Lloyd Morse and James Snowdon, founders of Edinburgh restaurant The Palmerston where Maher previously worked. Occupying a large corner site that’s spread across three shop fronts, Lannan will be takeaway focused but include some indoor seating. Classic pastries will form a big part of the offer, as will nostalgic items including custard slices and yum yums. There will also be signatures that will include croissant tarts – laminated pastry cases adorned with seasonal fillings for which Maher has become known for on Instagram. Previous fillings have included baked vanilla custard; strawberry, vanilla and oat; and roast peach and fig leaf. There have been savoury options too, such as confit tomato, goats curd and basil.

Zacharie Poulot​

Zacharie Poulot is on a mission. The former executive pastry chef at Mayfair restaurant Hide recently relocated to Cornwall to oversee the bakery and pastry department at Crocadon, Dan Cox’s largely self-sufficient farm-to-tale restaurant, which opened to the public back in February. The move was a no-brainer for Poulot, who was inspired by the regenerative approach to agriculture and closed-loop system championed by Cox and his team. “Sourcing and produce have always been a big thing for me,” he explains. “It’s my priority before I start a recipe, and here I can see the fields where the wheat for the flour is growing.” At Crocadon, Poulot uses leftovers from the restaurant kitchen as well as a caramelised whey made from the by-product of the farm’s dairy production. A stout broth served in the restaurant is kept and then turned into bread. Poulot grew up in Brittany, in northern France, and has worked in pastry and bakery for 15 years, including 10 in London. As well as Hide, he spent time at Jason Atherton’s Pollen Street Social, Simon Rogan’s Fera, and The Square in Mayfair. Prior to joining Crocadon he spent a year in South Korea, where he worked at the Michelin-starred Evett in Seoul. He intends to return to Korea at some point in the next year, but is also plotting other trips, including one to Chile. The aim is that within five years, he would have made it to all of the countries he’s keen to explore, and brought all those different skills and techniques together, perhaps with the aim of then launching his own bakery business.

Tim Goodwin​

As founder of The Street Bakeshop, an artisan bakery that opened in the Hampshire village of Old Basing in August 2020, Tim Goodwin has been making serious waves in the bakery world. While the bakery was set up to run alongside Goodwin’s existing catering business, it quickly became its heart and soul. Just a year into trading, Goodwin was named Baker of the Year 2021 in the Baking Industry Awards, which are run by Restaurant​’s sister site, the British Baker​. A year later, it went on to triumph in the Craft Bakery Business category at the same awards. 

Kimberley Lin​

Kimberley Lin’s career has seen her work as a pastry chef at Claridge’s and The Savoy as well as a development chef for Dominique Ansel, but in 2020 she took advantage of the pandemic to launch her ‘fantasy project’: selling cookies in London’s Covent Garden. Called Floozie Cookie, the brand originally operated as a pop-up before laying down permanent roots in the area. Inspired by the decadence of the roaring 20s, Lin’s all-vegan ‘stuffed cookies’ include flavours such as pecan pie – a butterscotch cookie with toasted pecans and soft, date caramel; Cinnamon Crunch - cookie dough coated with cinnamon crunch filled with speculoos cream; and PB&J – a gluten free peanut butter cookie that contains homemade raspberry jam.

Kae Shibata​

Kae Shibata spent her early career at The Ritz, where she started out as an unpaid stage and eventually moved up the ranks to sous chef in the pastry kitchen – running afternoon tea for 450 covers per day. Working with chocolate became a particular focus for her as she progressed, thanks to the technical precision and patience that it required, and it’s this passion that eventually led her to launch Cartografie Chocolate with her partner Sven-Hanson Britt, who uns Oxeye restaurant in London’s Nine Elms; and Daniela Nunzi-Mihranian, founder and creative director at Studio Minerva. Having launched in 2020, Cartografie is now a growing business that’s looking to put the spotlight on ethically-sourced chocolate. All products come with a full description of each chocolate and the origin country. Shibata’s hope is that with Cartografie she can ‘push the boundaries of education’ and help consumers to understand the importance of where chocolate truly comes from.

Peter Doughty-Cook​

If there was a prize for nominative determinism then Peter Doughty-Cook would be in the running. Named Baker of the Year at the 2022 Baking Industry Awards, his eponymous bakery, Peter Cooks Bread, is described as the baker’s best achievement to date. Nestled in the Malvern Hills in Hereford, Peter Cooks Bread has been open for eight years, predominantly serving the wholesale market. As well as building a successful business, Doughty-Cook is praised for dedicating a lot of time to training his staff. Currently there are four young bakers working alongside him, none of whom worked as bakers before they joined. With them, Doughty-Cook spends time between all sections of the bakery – mixing, table preparation and oven – teaching, advising, and supporting them as they grow as bakers.

Nishitha Kannan​

Named the Rising Star of 2022 at the Baking Industry Awards, Nishitha Kannan impressed judges with her thirst for bakery knowledge and dedication to technical and professional development. While pursuing her master’s degree in food science and technology at Cardiff Metropolitan University, Kannan was nominated as a ‘Next Generation Baker’ for Puratos and as a part of that developed a range of vegan bakery products and an eggless cake mix. She has also created products for Marks & Spencer’s premium cake range.

Rebecca Spaven and Oliver Castello​

In little more than a year, Rebecca Spaven and Oliver Castello have gone from little-known bakers to having what’s considered to be one of the best bakeries in London. Famed for its long queues, particularly on weekends, Toad Bakery launched on Peckham Road in April 2022. Originally known as Frog Bakery, here Spaven and Castello focus on combining classic and contemporary elements of the British bakery with a regularly-changing menu that features sweet and savoury croissants, chocolatines, cinnamon buns and sweet and savoury Danishes. There’s also a selection of sourdough breads made with UK-grown, sustainably-farmed grain.

Lungile Mhlanga​

If you’ve spent any time on Instagram recently, chances are you will have stumbled upon Treats Club. Based in Shoreditch and billed as ‘London's only cooked-to-order donut shop’, Treats Club has become a hit with the capital’s foodie scene. Behind the brand is Lungile Mhlanga, who launched Treats Club as a street food outfit back in 2018. Residencies and pop-ups followed, and then finally, earlier this year, Mhlanga opened her first bricks and mortar location. Mhlanga, who has featured in Forbes 30 Under 30, thrives on playing on her customers’ nostalgia, offering a range of elaborately indulgent hot doughnuts and desserts served with ice cream and hot chocolate. Signatures include donut French toast with a salted condensed milk ice cream. “I’m all about food memory,” she says. “How can I trigger a food memory by creating nostalgic desserts that makes us all feel 13 again.”