A household forgives a lot. If the loaf is darker than usual, that is character. If it runs twenty minutes late, the kids might gripe and your spouse might give you the crooked-eye, but that is the end of it.
A kitchen does not have that luxury. Bread arrives into a service with a fixed start time, portioned against a plate that was costed months ago. Supplying restaurants is a different craft from supplying a table, and it is worth being plain about what it takes.
John and I loved serving restaurants. It is hard work, and most chefs and restaurateurs know it. They appreciate you when you are on point and not the thing they have to worry about. That creates gratitude — and gratitude, so they say, is the key to happiness.
Consistency is job #1
A chef is not buying a loaf, they are buying the same loaf, every week, at the same size. That is harder with a natural leaven than with commercial yeast, because a starter has moods. Managing that — feeding schedules, dough temperature, timing the bulk against the weather — is most of the work.
Timing beats everything
Bread that is superb and late is worse than bread that is good and on time. Kitchens build prep around a delivery window. We would rather commit to a realistic slot and hit it every week than promise an early one and miss. You are remembered with perfect clarity for the one late delivery, not for the fifty that arrived on time. Human nature.
Say no early
The most useful thing a baker can do for a kitchen is be honest about capacity before taking the order. A small bakery that overcommits fails somebody, and it is usually the newest customer. If we cannot do the volume properly, we will say so at the start. It is worse to take the business, get it wrong and be remembered for that, than to wait until we can commit to something exceptional.
What that work asks for
Standing weekly orders. A short list of breads that can be held to specification. Enough notice to fold a kitchen into the bake. It is a particular way of working, and it is the way we know.
We are a cottage bakery today, which sets the limits on what we can supply and to whom. If you run a kitchen and want to keep in touch about what might be possible later on, we would be glad to hear from you.
The future
Restaurants and food service were always a joy to be part of. It can be tough, demanding, but rewarding. The future…