This Life: bakery47

A good honest bakery. Anna and Sam Luntley are modest people in every regard, but when it comes to trying to sum up their business, bakery47, ‘a good honest bakery’ pretty much covers it. This doesn’t do them justice, however. The term ‘artisan’ is bandied around a lot these days, in relation to everything from coffee shops to potteries, to the extent that it has lost a bit of meaning. But Anna and Sam are most definitely artisans in what they do for a living.
“This is a working bakery,” says Anna. “We make real bread, cakes and pastries by hand, with passion, integrity and pride. It’s our life.”
The difference between this business, in Glasgow’s South Side, and others that might have started out with the same vision, values and ethos, is that once the others find success, they tend to branch out into bigger, more commercial ventures. bakery47, in contrast, while thriving, has stuck whole­heartedly to its roots. “We aren’t interested in making millions or in competing with the open-all-hours supermarkets,” states Anna. “People nowadays expect to be able to get anything they want whenever they want. We’re trying to resist this. We want to make people appreciate their food and to think about where it comes from, to think about the care and passion and time that went into making it.”
And they’re doing a sterling job. Once you get used to the unconven­tional way they operate, it’s clear that their formula is a winning one. They don’t open every day; when they do open, they stay open until they sell out of their produce. Some days, they only run a take-away menu; at the weekend, there’s the option to sit in. They host poetry readings and run workshops with local artists and makers in crafts such as macramé, wood­carving, flower arranging and book binding. A sense of community and together­ness is at the heart of everything that they do.

This is just a taster, you can browse the full article with more stunning photography on pages 20-29, issue 105.

Subscribe now

DETAILS

Words Catherine Coyle
Photography Neale Smith
Art Direction Gillian Welsh