Why you should hop to Toad bakery in Deptford

We never imagined we would be so busy,” says Rebecca Spaven, co-founder of Toad, the independent bakery in Camberwell, London that still has queues around the corner every Saturday morning in the four years since it opened. So it is that the team felt it was the right time to open a second site in southeast London, in Deptford’s Market Yard.

“We’ve project managed the whole thing, which is a classic Grand Designs error,” says Spaven, who describes the larger, single-level bakery as “a dream” in comparison to the split-level original. Arranged around an open kitchen, a sweet-chestnut timber structure by designer and carpenter Nick Tudor frames the bakers at work.

Spaven’s co-founder Oliver Costello continues to lead the pastry kitchen, with Toad’s cult bakes – including an everything-bagel-flavoured croissant filled with chive cream cheese, and a yuzu orange Jaffa Cake – still on the menu. Spaven oversees the bread; her favourite is an old-school white sandwich tin loaf, made with baguette dough. “It’s a good way of sneaking sourdough into people’s lives without them realising it,” she says.

With both bakeries now open seven days a week, the team has grown from 15 to 40. “We are dedicated to our staff not working excessive overtime,” Spaven says. And, while Deptford now houses almost all the production, the menus remain the same. “We didn’t want Camberwell to feel left out,” she says. “The idea is for it to feel like one big bakery rather than two.”

toadbakery.com