01
Sourdough and breads
The house white, a seeded, a dark rye, spelt and honey, baguettes every day, and an olive and rosemary loaf on Fridays and Saturdays. Thirty-six hours from mixing to the counter, all of it by hand.
House sourdough £4.
- Sourdough
- Pastries
- Cakes
- Wholesale
Baked from four.
Sold the same day.
A wood-fired bakery in the old butcher's on Llandaff High Street. Sourdough proved for thirty-six hours, croissants laminated by hand, Welsh cakes on the bakestone, cakes to order, and twenty-six cafés across Cardiff supplied before they open.
- On the counter by 7:30
- Welsh flour, named mills
- Nothing sold a day old
- 4.9 from 980 reviews
Baked from four, sold the same dayThe ovens are lit at four and the first sourdough is out by seven. Nothing is held over: what is left at three goes to the community fridge on Cathedral Road, and tomorrow starts from flour again.
Welsh flour, named millsBread flour from a mill in Monmouthshire, rye from Pembrokeshire, butter from a Carmarthenshire dairy. The mill and the dairy are on the blackboard and on the wholesale invoices.
Thirty-six hour sourdoughEvery loaf is leavened with the same starter since 2015, bulk-fermented overnight and shaped by hand. No yeast, no improvers, nothing in the bread but flour, water, salt and time.
Cakes made to order, not from stockCelebration cakes are baked for the day they are collected, from a short list of sponges that we know work. A sketch and a price within a working day; £30 holds the date.
The bakery
Six things from one oven.
02
Pastries and buns
Butter croissants laminated the afternoon before, pain au chocolat, almond croissants from yesterday's, cardamom and cinnamon buns at eight, and a custard tart that sells out by eleven.
Croissant £2.
03
Celebration cakes
Six sponges we know work, decorated by Ffion to a sketch you approve first. An eight-inch cake for twelve from £65, tiered wedding cakes from £320, and a £30 deposit that holds the date.
Eight-inch for twelve from £65, ten-inch for twenty from £85, three tiers from £320.
04
Welsh cakes and bara brith
Welsh cakes on the bakestone from half past seven, bara brith made to Megan's grandmother's recipe with tea-soaked fruit, teisen lap on Fridays, and all of it by post anywhere in the UK.
Welsh cakes £1.
05
Wholesale
Sourdough, baguettes, pastries and buns delivered in our van before half past seven to cafés, delis and restaurants within eight miles. Published prices, no contract, a standing order you can change by text the day before.
House sourdough from £2.
06
Bread classes
Four hours on a Sunday afternoon at the bench with Megan or Rhys, eight people, your own starter and two loaves to take home. Sourdough most weeks, croissants once a month, Welsh baking before St David's Day. Vouchers last a year.
£85 a person, 2pm to 6pm on Sundays, eight places.
To order
Six cakes, baked the morning you collect.
Serves 12
Victoria sponge
Vanilla sponge, strawberry jam, vanilla buttercream. The one for a sixth birthday and a ninetieth.
8 inch · from£65
Serves 12
Chocolate fudge
Dark chocolate sponge, chocolate buttercream, a fudge drip if you want one. The most ordered.
8 inch · from£70
Serves 12
Lemon and elderflower
Lemon sponge, elderflower syrup, lemon curd, Swiss meringue buttercream. The wedding favourite.
8 inch · from£72
Serves 12
Carrot
Carrot, walnut and cinnamon sponge with cream cheese frosting. Walnuts can be left out.
8 inch · from£68
Serves 12
Coffee and walnut
Espresso sponge, coffee buttercream, candied walnuts on top. For the people who ask for it every year.
8 inch · from£68
Serves 12
Vegan chocolate
Dairy-free and egg-free chocolate sponge with an oat buttercream. Nobody can tell, and we have tested that.
8 inch · from£72
How we work
Four things you can expect every time.
Four ingredients
Flour, water, salt and the starter. The ingredients for every bake are on a card on the counter and nothing on the card is a number.
Open at half seven
Because people buy bread on the way to work. Sourdough and croissants are on the counter by 7:30, Tuesday to Friday; the cardamom buns come out at eight.
The price is on the board
A house sourdough is £4.20. A croissant is £2.90. A Welsh cake is £1.20. Wholesale prices are on the website, which most bakeries will not do.
Nothing in the bin
Anything unsold at three goes to the community fridge the same afternoon. Day-old bread is £2 from the basket by the door until it is gone. Flour sacks go to the allotments.
- 11years on the High Street
- 1,400loaves a week
- 26cafés and shops we deliver to
- 4.9average rating
The oven
A brick oven, a tonne of wood a month, and a four o'clock start.
The oven was built into the old butcher's chimney in 2015 and has been lit six mornings a week since. Megan fires it at four with ash and beech from a woodland in Monmouthshire, bakes the sourdough at its hottest from six, and lets the falling heat take the rye, the bara brith and, last, the day's Welsh cakes on the bakestone in front of it. Nothing baked in it is sold the next day.
- Bread flour from Monmouthshire, rye from Pembrokeshire
- One starter, fed twice a day since the week we opened
- Unsold bread to the community fridge at three
A look inside
Three mornings.
The ovenFour in the morning
Megan
The first bake of the day is the house white, forty at a time on the peel, with the oven at its hottest. By seven they are on the counter and the second round is proving.
BreadsShaping the seeded
Megan
Two hundred loaves shaped by hand between nine at night and midnight, each one tensioned the same way so it stands up in the oven. You learn it in a month and perfect it in a year.
PastriesThe counter at half past seven
Rhys
The first round of croissants and the custard tarts, which will be gone by eleven. Rhys laminated them yesterday afternoon and proved them overnight.
Reviews
What Llandaff says.
The house sourdough has been our Saturday loaf for six years. Crust you can hear, keeps until Wednesday, and they put one aside for us without being asked. The day-old basket is the best £2 in Cardiff.
Croissants as good as any I have had in France, and I say that as someone who is tiresome about croissants. Get there before ten on a Saturday or you will be having a bun, which is also excellent.
Our wedding cake was the lemon and elderflower, three tiers, delivered and set up at the cathedral hall by Ffion herself. The sketch was exactly what we got. Three guests have since ordered their own.
Find us
The High Street, the charcoal front with the wheat door.
Number 14, the old butcher's between the Cathedral green and the Black Lion, with the tallest chimney on the street. An hour's free parking before ten, the Cathedral green car park all day, and the 25, 33 and 63 two minutes away on Cardiff Road. Come before ten for the full counter.
- Where. 14 High Street, Llandaff, the old butcher's with the charcoal frontage and the wheat-coloured door, between the Cathedral green and the Black Lion. The oven chimney is the tallest thing on the street after the cathedral.
- Parking. Free on the High Street for an hour before ten and on the Cathedral green car park all day. Cardiff Road has the longer bays. Bike racks on the wall outside; the trailer fits in the courtyard if you ask.
- Bus and train. The 25, 33 and 63 stop on Cardiff Road, two minutes away. Danescourt and Fairwater stations are both a fifteen-minute walk; the Taff Trail passes the end of the street, which is how a lot of Saturday loaves travel.
Questions people ask
Is everything really baked here?
Yes, all of it, in two ovens behind the shop: a wood-fired brick oven for the bread and a deck oven for the pastry. Nothing is bought in or part-baked elsewhere. The flour comes from two Welsh mills and the butter from one Welsh dairy, all named on the board.
What is sourdough, and why is it £4.20?
Bread leavened with a wild culture instead of yeast, which takes thirty-six hours and gives a loaf that keeps for days and digests more easily for many people. The price is 800g of good flour, a wood oven and a person's hands; we publish the ingredients and the cost of the flour, and a supermarket loaf is a different thing.
Can I order a cake at short notice?
Usually not under three weeks, because the diary fills and the sketch takes a round. We keep a few short-notice slots a month for a plain sponge with a message, so ring and ask; the answer is sometimes yes.
Do you deliver?
Bread and pastry orders over £40 within Llandaff and Pontcanna, yes, with the wholesale van before half past seven. Welsh cakes and bara brith by post anywhere in the UK. Wedding cakes delivered and set up within twenty miles for £45.
Do you supply cafés?
Twenty-six of them, plus delis, restaurants and two farm shops. Published prices from £2.90 a loaf, delivered before 7:30, change your order by text, no contract. The wholesale page has the whole price list.
Come in early, or order ahead.
Sourdough and croissants on the counter from half past seven, Welsh cakes on the bakestone, cakes to order with three weeks' notice, and wholesale to twenty-six cafés with the price list online. Ring, or use the form; a person replies within a working day.