Sourdough.
At 7am, a truck loaded with breads and bakes leaves Magazine Street Kitchen, the culinary events venue in Byculla, for Khar. The Byculla kitchen houses Mag Street Bread Co., a bakery that has been supplying breads wholesale to city restaurants and cafes such as Kaboom, Le15 Cafe and Woodside Inn since July this year. Last week, Mag Street Bread Co.’s first retail outlet opened in Khar.
The bakery has been allotted an air-conditioned kiosk with a glass door inside the recently relaunched Out of The Blue, the Continental restaurant in Khar. It’s smaller than most ATM booths and here two people make a crowd. The tiny room is heavily perfumed with bread, which prompted us to linger a tad longer than necessary.
Rachelle Andrade is chief baker at Mag Street Bread Co. Andrade studied baking at Sophia Polytechnic, after which she hopped from the bakery section in the Four Seasons Hotel to the Theobroma chain and restaurants owned by Impresario Hospitality (owners of the Salt Water Cafe, Smoke House Deli and Social chains) before her current recruitment.
Until you have a specific carb in mind, the choice provided by Andrade in this limited space can be baffling. Their baskets, which are filled once a day, every morning, brim with sourdough loaves, sandwich breads, ciabatta and baguettes. Also on display is the Viennoiserie, which spans croissants, cruffins (a muffin and croissant hybrid), pain au chocolat and kouign-amann (French pastry). Here’s our verdict on items from both sections:
BAKERY
Sourdough loaf Khar and Bandra’s sourdough prospects have improved since Kitchen Garden opened in Bandra a month ago. The salad bar sells their loaves and offers the exalted bread in sandwiches. You could alternatively make a routine of purchasing Mag Street Bread Co.’s compelling sourdough with a dark, crisp crust and characteristic hole-filled crumb. The crackly bread requires a bit of muscle and teeth exertion to slice and bite; the effort pays off when you taste the tangy, malty flavour that makes sourdough popular among bread connoisseurs. Our loaf was also appropriately chewy and moist. Rs418.
Tomato focaccia If you’re entertaining at home, then put the tomato focaccia, a semi-soft, frisbee-sized disc flecked with tangy sundried tomatoes, on a party platter with quality olive oil. Rs83.
Multi-grain Pullman loaf Mag Street Bread Co. has an impressive selection of Pullman loaves, commonly known as the sandwich loaf, including brioche, multi-grain bread, pain de mie and whole wheat loaf. We skipped the indulgent brioche for the toffee-toned, seed-studded multi-grain bread with a mild caramel finish. The symmetrical loaf with a thin crust and fine crumb is among the tastiest multi-grain breads we’ve had albeit an expensive one for daily consumption. Rs180.
VIENNOISSERIE
Cruffin A muffin and croissant hybrid, the cruffin is a pastry innovation along the lines of the faddish cronut. Shaped like a pastry cone, the sugar-dusted treat was plump with a generous filling of vanilla custard. It’s so rich that the layered crust practically tastes fried like a doughnut. Rs150.
Kouign-amann The kouign-amann (pronounced kween ah-mon) is essentially a croissant on crack as the butter-laden pastry, shaped to resemble a crown, is laminated with sugar. The dense pastry tasted unnecessarily heavy. Ordering the cruffin along with the kouign-amann, as we did, is the surest path to damned arteries. Rs150.
Croissant Their burnished croissant, though still cosmetically intact at 9.45am when we picked it up, lacked lightness. Under the springy crust was a soggy as opposed to an airy crumb that had partially collapsed owing to the excessive butter in its folds. Rs120.
Get: Sourdough (Rs418), cruffin (Rs150), tomato focaccia (Rs83).
Skip: Kouign-amann (Rs150).
It is our policy to wait at least a week after an establishment has opened before we review it.
Prices include taxes. This review was conducted anonymously.
Mag Street Bread Co., Out of the Blue, Le Sutra Hotel, next to Olive Bar & Kitchen, Union Park, Khar. Tel: 022 2600 3000. Open daily, from 9am to 1am. Get directions here.