Bakery hysteria is out of control
Queuing is the British national pastime but this is something else...
Remember when you used to be able to pop into an artisan bakery and just …buy something? You didn’t have to stand in a queue spanning three different postcodes, only to get to the front and realise everything except tofu sandwiches and plain croissants had long since sold out.
Standing in line for a bakery is now a legitimate weekend activity to plan with friends. Bring a flask of coffee while you chat, shift your weight from one foot to the other, and wait. And wait and wait.
Fortitude Bakehouse in Bloomsbury with its cobbled backstreet location used to be relatively unknown. You could walk in, buy a friand for the road and there would rarely be another person ahead of you. It’s not a bakery I frequent anymore since they became internet-famous for their enormous filled beignets, which now cause hour-long queues at weekends. I bought one once (on a quiet weekday afternoon) and gave it away after a bite. Way too much cream. I really like their other cakes but that was a beig-no for me.
A month ago, I got the tube to Notting Hill especially to buy pastries from Layla bakery (always delicious) and when I arrived at midday, there wasn’t a single crumb left, only coffee.
It’s the same story all over the city. I’ve been avoiding the trek to Southeast London to try TOAD Bakery as (despite its rave reviews) I simply cannot be bothered to get the train and then stand at the back of a 57-person queue. And I’m not a morning person, so I’d never be first in line.
Last weekend we hired Lime bikes and cycled up the road to Pophams Bakery, where we took one look at the wait and ditched our plan on the assumption that surely there wouldn’t be anything left by the time we reached the front.
I thought pastry mania was a London-centric thing (along with prolific phone thefts from pavement-mounted teens on bikes), but Lannan Bakery in Edinburgh reports people queueing before 7am and waits can reach two hours. I’ve noticed their pastries and cakes often feature custard of some sort and since custard is a main food group for me, you better believe I’ll be making an exception and joining the queue when I’m next in Scotland. Plus, they recently won the world’s best bakery newcomer, so that’s no small matter…
The bakery hysteria doesn’t seem limited to cakes or the UK. Content creator Jessie Bush was in New York recently and on her Instagram Stories, she commented on the same thing – incomprehensible queues for bagel shops, bakeries and even Katz Deli (hardly the hottest new opening in town).
The worst part is when the hype isn’t deserved and you feel like a gullible fool who got sucked in, waited far too long and spent far too much.
I went to It’s Bagels in Notting Hill recently (their Primrose Hill branch in particular gets queues down the street). It’s a hip New York-style bagel place that people go *wild* for on social media. My cream cheese and salmon bagel was £12 and the bread was so thick that I needed 30 minutes and a carafe of water to get through it.
I would never usually pay that much for a bagel but I had gone there especially (not knowing the prices until I ordered) and wanted to know what all the fuss was about. There was enough cream cheese to ice a wedding cake but only one solitary slice of smoked salmon. I love bagels as much as the next carb fan and their branding is very cool but I wouldn’t go back. There wasn’t a queue but it just wasn’t worth the price.
From honeycomb doughnuts to apple crumble (I see you, Bread Ahead and Humble Crumble queues - snaking around Borough Market), and various spots selling enormous sandwiches, the viral food mania feels out of control. I think the horse has bolted, though. Surely there’s no going back from here?
Of course, I blame TikTok and Reels, as I do for most things.
The most surprising part is it’s not like any of these delicious little temptresses are cheap to buy! A single pastry or slice of cake will usually set you back between £4.50 and £6, and if you’ve waited an hour and travelled across the city to get there, you’ll probably want to try a couple of things to make it worth your while. Are pistachio and chocolate swirls the new reason why we can’t get on the housing ladder?
I’m indifferent to avocado but I’m extremely partial to a bakery visit and I’ll likely rent a tiny flat forever, so there we go. A cake, a cake, my deposit for a cake!
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I’m planning on sending another post very soon (my All Things Considered round-up for October), so to save your inboxes any undue hassle, I’ve published this quietly without sending it out by email. Substack strongly suggests we don’t do this but I’m doing it anyway, so I’m curious to see if anyone will notice it!
I’d love to hear from you in the comments if you have any thoughts on the worsening baked goods hype that leaves us all standing in the rain for 45 minutes while we hold tight for a cinnamon bun.
Where are you keen to try, despite the inevitable wait?
And if you’ve queued for a popular bakery or sandwich/dessert spot, which ones were worth the hype? And which ones weren’t? Tell us below 😁.
I refuse to queue for food (although I did years ago for breakfast at a place called Mama's in SF which was worth it) and I don't get why everyone is so desperate to have everything everyone else has (food, clothes, whatever), instead of discovering stuff on their own? I don't mean that people shouldn't take recommendations, of course, but I'd run a mile from viral food.
I was pleased to discover I was staying on the same street as Mamiche in Paris last week – never managed to go once because the queue was round the block every day. Ditto Lannan, despite being from Edinburgh I’ve never been because there isn’t a pastry in the world good enough that I’ll cross town at 6am. The upside of the Mamiche queue is I ended up going to a place directly across the street called Blondie, which makes the best brownie I’ve tasted in my entire life. That’ll be my recommendation from now on.