Features / chandos road
Is this Bristol’s best bacon butty?
Ben Martin is at work by 3am most mornings to feed the sourdough starter at the Bread Shop in Redland.
“It’s a long-old process but it’s very much a labour of love,” Ben explains on a recent morning.
You might have sampled Ben’s wares while he was still working in the basement kitchen here on Chandos Road – in the sister business to Wilsons restaurant just a few doors away – helping to make bacon rolls costing £6 each that have swiftly achieved legendary status.
Inside the Bread Shop on Chandos Road
So are these the best bacon rolls in Bristol? It’s a bold claim but one that Ben stands by, with the bacon going through a curing process that lasts for almost a week.
It’s all to do with an east Asian fermentation process known as koji – “a special mould” in the words of Ben – with the pork belly brined in shio (liquid) koji for 24 hours, then dry cured for 48 hours and cured for three days.
This method retains a lot more moisture in the bacon but still gives the cured flavour because of the koji.
“I honestly believe that the process is worth it 100 per cent,” Ben says.
“It doesn’t just taste like bacon. It tastes like the best bacon!”
Bread on display at the Bread Shop
It’s not just bread for sale here
The Bread Shop has been the site of a bakery for decades
The Bread Shop at 18 Chandos Road in Redland is open on Fridays and Saturdays from 9am to 3pm
Main photo: Wilsons; all other photos: Martin Booth
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