The Bakery Porn of Northeast London
A photo feast
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One of the first things that struck me walking around my neighborhood in northeast London was how they let the baked goods just like, all hang out. No sneezeguards here, unless you’re talking about fancy French patisserie in the usual museum-grade display cases. The English like to display their goods unapologetically in the open air, piling up layer cakes and pyramids of scones and millionaire shortcakes in the shop windows to beckon you in like some starved Dickensian character, huffing on the window glass too long.
We may have big restaurant portions in the U.S., but no one does wanton cake displays like the English. Let’s take a walk…
The first up is the reigning queen of bakery porn, the Ottolenghi cafe, below. This is the display amongst which all others must be measured…
As you can see below, they do a good job of combining overindulgence with meticulously iced almond friands. It’s an art.
Moving along… I hate myself for posting a photo of the massive croissants from Phillipe Conticini and joining in this shameless Instagram influencer play. But I do like how this momma croissant looks like it’s nursing its little baby croissants.
In the next window at Phillipe Conticini, below, the classic afternoon tea display. This hurts to look at a bit because I used to have an amazing pair of plastic tea-tray earrings from Fred Flare in the early aughts (with petit fours and little sandwiches on it and everything!) that broke. If you see any, hit me up. Everyone should have more food hanging from their ears.
Once you get in the door at Phillipe Conticini, it does pain me to admit they have mighty fine French pastries (dammit)…
…but I still respect Belle Epoque patisserie across the street more, below, for just going with the classic French pastry display in the window, no shameless £25 XXL croissant to get you in the door or for ponces like me to Substack.
Belle Epoque is just a few doors down from Nourished Communities, a local artisan deli with a fairly barfy name considering they’re not feeding starving people but nourishing my bougie ass with £25 olive oil. But they got a sweet display of pleasantly plump Argentinian empanadas that I always mean to try but they sell out too damn quickly, below. Don’t you just want to grab one of those and squeeze them till the filling come out? Okay, maybe I’m alone in this.
Moving along down the street, one shouldn’t see a semi pre-grilled croque monsieur, below, and think “I want that,” but when they slam it under the toaster again, hell yeah I want that. I look at that damn semi-premade croque monsieur every way on my way to the Tube and think, “You. Now. Me. Let’s do this.”
Okay. Still with me? As we hightail it past pre-grilled cheese, walking about 30 minutes north from Islington to Stoke Newington, we’ve now made it to homemade banoffee pie territory in the shop window at Parlour…
..as well as a selection of decorated canelés…
..plus assorted doughnuts that would please Homer Simpson mightily. I love the cute cartoon clash of colors and designs here:
And for the finale…let’s end on this lovely image, below, of a rather quality pile-up. You’ve got the full shebang here. Not as elegant a layout as Ottolenghi’s, yet far more salacious. What Parlour lacks in perfect preening they make up for in sloppily cut cakes that speak to insatiable desire. It all says, “I ain’t got time to fluff these cakes for a photo shoot, man - we’re busy getting our chow on.” (And no, I don’t know what “fluffing” cakes means, and yes I make this crap up as I go along…)
But check it out there: Multilayer cakes on stands holding up the back row (peanut butter cake! carrot cake! red velvet!) with a tray of croissants and sundry sweets left over from the morning! A frontline of cookies— apple pie, walnut chocolate chip, and nutella walnut—bordered on the left by an array of tartlets! Oh dear! Let me avert my eyes, you dirty dirty dirty…
I’m stuffed.
Is there a bakery display that has you slobbering over the cash register? I need tips and links, folks. To the comments!
A+
Never change! Love the nursing mama croissant and everything about this.
Well this was just right up my alley. I am not hungry but looking at all those desserts has made me very happy. I'll be revisiting this post again.