No Sleepy Heads Hastings Bakers Rise Early
EDWINA HUGHES
Rob Batchelor aka Ginger Baker and his sourdough
We are spoilt with an amazing range of bakeries in Hastings and St. Leonards – from the long-standing institutions of Judges and the Oak, to the newer kids on the block, Maker + Baker and Sleeper. Every day, our bakers produce sourdoughs, pastries, bagels, lunchtime rolls, baps and pies galore. Personally, I go to Judges for cheesy scones, Maker + Baker for pastries, the Oak for their secret ingredient sourdough (more on that later) and Sleeper for their filled bagels. But there are many more – we’ve got The Rye Bakery, a new Levantine bakery on George Street and homebakers galore.
I became interested in writing a piece on bakeries a while back when speaking to Ross of Maker + Baker. On a rare night off, he mentioned that his normal start time is 3am. I wondered what others would say: is this the norm? Turns out Andreas at the Oak has seen his 3am and raised him to 1am, but at the other end of the scale we see Nick and Jane at Sleeper (aptly named in this case?) enjoy a fairly reasonable 5am start. Still though, this is clearly a job for those who can hack early starts. So what convinces our bakers to do these antisocial hours? What makes it worth the effort? I asked a few of them to spill the beans, and I gave them each a nickname to help recognise who is who.
The Hipsters Choice: Maker + Baker
35 Robertson Street, Hastings TN34 1HT (Wednesday-Friday 08.30-14.00, Saturday 09.00-14.00)
Ross is a self-taught home baker. He started baking around 2018, initially selling through Sugarpie Honeybuns café alongside home deliveries through lockdown. After that, he hosted a few pop ups at Shop in Kings Road and Three Faces of Del Parc. But when an opportunity to operate independently came up in 2021, he and his partner went for it and opened at 51 Kings Road. It was an instant success with queues out the door from day one.
They have since moved to Robertson Street to larger premises where they can bake on site. They have also extended their range, now selling sourdough bread, pastries, cakes, sandwiches and coffee. Their most popular items are croissants and pains au chocolat. Ross says the best thing about being a baker in Hastings is being part of a fantastic community of independent traders and the support of customers. He says the hardest thing is the work/life balance. The hours are demanding, and because the breads are naturally fermented; any temperature change can affect the days’ schedule and knock the whole thing out of kilter.
Sue and Mal, Oak Bakery
The Community Favourite: The Oak Bakery
17 London Road, St. Leonards, TN37 6AJ (Monday-Friday 07.30-16.00, Saturday 07.30-15.00)
Andreas Daskalakis is the founder and head baker at the Oak. He has been running the business for over 14 years. It started as a family collaboration with his mum and sister working alongside him but now he employs two other bakers and four shop assistants, including Sue and Mal (pictured)
The Oak has been operating at this site for at least 50 years. Andreas took it over in 2013 and wanted to create a bakery that offered people value for money. That ethos has continued through to today. They sell freshly baked sourdough, granary and multiseed loaves along with bread rolls and lots of sweet treats. They sell out of most items almost every day.
Bread is baked fresh every morning – their sourdough is different to that on offer in many other places in Hastings. This may alarm the purists, but Andreas tells me he decided to tweak the recipe because he wanted to create a dough that wouldn’t harden as quickly as conventional sourdough. The secret ingredient – olive oil. Now this is bound to create some controversy amongst the dye-in-the-wool bakers of the town, some may say that’s not real sourdough but the old adage of ‘give the people what they want’ seems to apply, as it sells out pretty much every day.
Personally, I like it. It makes for a softer dough that stays fresh for a bit longer than the conventional sourdough. I have no doubt that there’s space for both! Andreas says the best thing about running the bakery is the customers – making friends and feeling a sense of community. The worst thing is the hours. He starts at 1am and finishes at 11am six days a week. This makes for very little downtime. In the 14 years he’s been running the business, he’s been on holiday just once – this year, for three days over Easter. This is not a vocation for everyone!
The Train Station Stop-Off: The Sleeper Store
47 Kings Road, St Leonards TN37 6DY (Monday-Saturday 08.30-14.30)
This is a great stop-off en route to the station. Sleeper is operated by partners Nick and Jane. It opened in 2021. The couple originally worked in East London as publishing designers before moving to East Sussex 11 years ago. Sleeper is a bagel café, although you can also pick up some chocolate, gooey pastries and coffee; but bagels are what they do.
Sleeper fave bagel
The bagels are hand baked fresh every morning. Most popular are salt beef, smoked salmon with cream cheese, egg mayo & truffle crisps and vegan apple and fennel slaw. Nick tells me that he loves his regular customers and finds people very friendly. “Everyone down here is super friendly. We get many customers from further afield like Rye, Battle, Eastbourne and even from London! St. Leonards is a special place.”. Like The Oak and Maker + Baker, Nick and Jane highlight the discipline and early morning starts that baking requires. They also mention the attention to detail needed, including the different temperatures of the early morning and how this affects proving times as they are baking.
I asked Nick about the Elbow lyrics on the wall from a song called Kindling and I was intrigued why they had picked it. It’s a love song featuring a train journey and an almost Van Gogh-like imagining of the wheat fields exploding with colour when you see a particular name or face light up your phone as they call. Nick explains Sleeper has lots of people come in as they are travelling or passing through, and felt a lyric about journeys might resonate with people as they stopped off: “Travelling back home is always a favourite journey.”
The indie: Parkside Sourdough
37 Lower Park Road, TN34 2LA (Saturday 10-11am)
Oli Kellet has been doing a weekly pop-up sourdough bread stall for the last two years. He started through a network of friends on Whatsapp and it has grown from there. He makes about 50 loaves every week. The stall is an opportunity for people from the street and neighbouring area to get together and have a catch up.
He tells me his ambition is not world or even Hastings domination, rather he wants to offer an alternative to the sliced supermarket variety which depressingly contains lots of preservatives, salt and sugar. Oli likes the people he meets through the regular Saturday stall which has been a great connector.
Interestingly, a strand of his family have been bakers for 150 years, running the Oliver Adams Bakery in Northampton. Oli hastens to mention that his kitchen has a 5-star food hygiene rating and has recently been inspected by the council – for anyone selling to the public this is a requirement, so if you want to get started keep this in mind.
And the rest
The Crown
In addition to these featured bakers, Emmanuel Hadjiandreou (previously head baker at Judges) is baking at the Crown, which sells mini loaves on a Wednesday. They sell Pan Gallego, Jerusalem bagels and many more. He says he loves feedback from customers. When asked, he says the toughest thing about operating a bakery here is finding staff. I’m not surprised with the hours involved!
Ginger Baker
Rob is not selling his sourdough; he’s trading loaves with friends or giving them away. Rob operates a miniscule micro bakery from his home in Clive Vale. He bakes a tartine country loaf. He’s found lots of inspiration and support from other bakers. But even at this level, he finds it pretty time consuming. It can be a juggle between home life and baking life, he says.
So that’s the run down – hope you’ve enjoyed hearing their stories as much as I have, and that we continue to support our wonderful and thriving baking scene in our local community.
We hope you have enjoyed reading this article. The future of our volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. You can also support local journalism by becoming a friend of HIP. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.
Leave a Reply