CONGRATULATIONS to Lovingly Artisan, which has just won two top awards – Northwest Regional Bakery of the Year and National Bakery of the Year at the inaugural Bakery Business Magazine National Bakery awards.
It’s a reward for their expansion from their original main operation at Plumgarths Farm Shop, near Kendal, into Altrincham where a year ago they opened a new micro-bakery at the Market. We love Bread and Fishes’ unique combination of hand-crafted, freshly baked rye and einkorn (an ancient grain) sourdough breads with fresh fish street food. They source the fish for oven-baked dishes such as mackerel with Kalamata olives and salted anchovies; hake with sweet chillies, garlic and parsley butter and oven-roasted prawns. You can, of course, also take away the amazing breads, which scooped the honours at a high profile ceremony at BAFTA 195 Piccadilly, in London. Owners Aidan Monks and Catherine Connor are pictured below with their awards.
Aiden told the gathering: “I believe that we truly have an opportunity to put bread back in the centre of the table. We are the generation right here, right now, who can actually take this back and deliver this food; this is the food of health, the food of life.”
Aiden’s baking background is impressive. He studied at the College of Culinary Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, and went on to be mentored by experts from Grands Moulins de Paris, the French bakery and patisserie school. It governs his approach – adopting old methods with a new way of thinking; such as utilising raw milks, ancient heritage grains and double fermentation.
