Whitton is only a couple of miles away from my home, but it’s been off my radar most of the time I’ve lived in the Twickenham area – for well over twenty years! However, when Jonathan and Lyndsey moved to a house there a few months ago, I started to get to know it better. And one of the most exciting finds has been Your Bakery – an artisan bakery in the high street selling wonderful breads, cakes and patisseries. From Jonathan and Lyndsey’s house, it’s a short walk away and in the summer I went there with them a few times for morning coffee as we were able to sit at the tables outside the bakery with Zeph (their Yorkie). It was far too cold to sit outside this morning, and poor Zeph looked rather sad to be left behind. Jonathan and I were anyway on our way elsewhere but my son (who shares my love of good coffee) suggested we had time to stop at Your Bakery en route.
There are seats at the back so we were able to sit down for our coffee and pastries.
It was early and they’d only just opened so were busy filling shelves with all the freshly baked goods. I couldn’t resist snapping away with my iPhone because everything looked so wonderful. From the bread:
To gorgeous cakes:
Mince pies and some of those wonderful Portuguese cakes, pastel de nata – little egg custard tarts:
And of course the pastries: croissants, pain au chocolat, almond croissants – and I spied some lovely little quiches on the shelves too:
There were even homemade grissini – Italian breadsticks:
There’s a bit of a deli too with quite a variety of jams, sweets, sauces etc. to buy:
I met one of the owners – Helen Cox – for the first time who told me a bit about them opening the bakery just over a year ago. They have a wholesale side that provides baked goods to well-known and respected local restaurants like The Bingham by the river in Richmond and The Victoria, a gastro pub in East Sheen. They use all organic ingredients; their flour coming from Shipton Mill. Helen’s business partner and co-owner, Stefano Piccinno, is a Swiss-trained patisserie chef and master baker. Your Bakery is a really wonderful find and a fantastic addition to my local area. Having talked a bit to Helen, I settled down to my croissant and coffee with Jonathan.
It was an excellent Flat White coffee and a gorgeous, light and buttery croissant – one of the best I’ve found locally, and Jonathan told me their bread is very good too. I’m sure I’ll be going back there soon and I must definitely try some of their delicious looking cakes.
As a fellow Twickonian, I agree about Whitton being somehow off the radar! This place certainly looks worth the trip!
Whitton’s not really on the way anywhere so unless you know someone there, it’s not a place to pass through … but interesting to see places like this bakery popping up and definitely worth a trip for a local Twickonian 🙂
I’m a daily visitor to Your Bakery (guess it helps that I’m a Whitton resident!) for a flat white, one of the best around. Poppy seed bloomer is amazing too. Cakes look dangerous, working up to trying the chocolate brownie cheesecake… and the mince pies are yum, eating one as I write this! Very friendly people and a real asset to the High Street.
The cakes are definitely dangerous looking! I want to go back and buy some – but I’d better not go too often 🙂
Am reading this on our barge in Burgundy and Whitton does seem a world away. Our house in Lincoln Avenue used to be classified as Whitton but I suspect at some time anything on the Twickenham side of the Chertsey Road became Twickenham instead. Interestingly there is a long history of Swiss bakers with shops in this area. Perhaps these are relations? Anyway the bread and cakes look wonderful and we look forward to making some taste comparisons with our local French boulangerie when we get back to UK in January. My particular expertise lies in the almond croissant area!
Di
Thanks for the local history, Di, and enjoy the rest of your trip!