The theory goes that you're either a baker or a cook - but looking at the wares of Sam and Anna Luntley, owners of Glasgow's newest artisan bakery, any culinary mishaps ever committed by the couple are instantly forgiven.
The story of bakery47 (that lower case 'b' is a deliberate move on the couple's part) began in January 2013 when Sam began baking sourdough bread from their home kitchen in Glasgow's south side. Selling bread and variety of cakes door-to-door in their street proved successful, and after two years of kneading, icing and creating, and the two-person team began supplying to small indie cafes and delis across the city including Laboratorio Espresso, on West Nile Street, and Great Western Road's Veldt deli.
Two years later and the business has grown edible arms and legs, to the point where Sam and Anna have just opened their first shop - bakery47 at 76 Victoria Road. Refreshingly aware of the changeable nature of a new premises, the couple admit themselves it might be a while yet until they've found their rhythm.
"It's going to take us a little while to find our feet," says Anna. "Sourdough bread and pastry making, especially, are vulnerable processes sensitive to temperature and timings, so it will take us time to get into a new routine with our baking schedules."
"While we find our bearings over the forthcoming weeks we'll be opening on an ad-hoc basis, keeping people up to date via Facebook and Instagram, because it's important that our customers are part of our journey.
"Over time we hope to not only offer an exciting and fully-stocked bakery counter but also a welcoming place for our customers to spend time in," explains Sam.
"We want customers to enjoy breakfast, lunch and occasional evening supper clubs, and we want to offer a regular home delivery service and host events and workshops by other local makers."
The latter is a plan already in motion, with the first scheduled workshop to be held February 27 by local florist Floral Menagerie on how to create flower crowns. What's more, the bakery's specials menu is to change on a week-by-week basis depending on seasonality and popularity of what is made - more proof, if needed, of the couple's dedication to remain in tune with their audience.
Their pastries (think croissants, pain au chocolat and sweet buns) are a 36-hour process - no quick fixes or easy shortcuts are found within the bakery's four walls. Breads are a 24-hour job, and the regular cake list (featuring some 30 different bakes) is enticing enough turn the heads of even the most committed February dieters. Cake commissions can also be completed to individual customer specifications and there's good news for coelics - much of what bakery47 produces is gluten-free.
"We hope to embrace the current interest in taking note of what and how we eat," Sam says.
"We're looking to encourage a delight in and appreciation of food, and to encourage people to bake bread together, enjoy sharing, celebrating and savouring what they eat, whether that be their regular slice of morning toast, gathering friends and family round a full spread for Sunday brunch or those few decadent mouthfuls of chocolate pick-me-up."
bakery47 is located at 76 Victoria Road, south side. Keep up to date with openings times via the company's Facebook or Instagram.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article