A former Nottingham Post reporter is now making his dough as a baker. Bryan Henesey worked as a journalist in the city for six years up until 2014 when he decided on a career change.
Up until now he's worked for other people but his dream has now come true with the launch of Breadmill Bakery at Sneinton Market. Customers can see Bryan, 39, in action at the small unit on Avenue C where one minute he's kneading the artisan bread, the next he's serving.
Products include a signature sourdough, rye loaves, quiche and savoury brioche filled with a cheese béchamel and prosciutto. Sweet treats include lemon tart, cardamom buns and panela custard tarts sprinkled with unrefined sugar.
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The bread doesn't get more local than this. The wheat is grown less than 15 miles away at a farm at Screveton and then milled at the bakery thanks to fundraising by the Nottingham Mill Coop run by Kimberley Bell, Emilie Lowen and Emma Shires, which paid for a modern stone mill to sit in the bakery window.
The father-of-two, who lives in Chilwell, said: "Growing up I always loved food and I always fancied being a baker if I'm honest. Where I grew up in Wigan there was a bakery on the corner five minutes walk away so I used to go there and thought I'd love to be a baker - but other people were like you don't want to do that you have to get up really early or work through the night."
So that's what led Bryan down the journalism path and he became a hobby baker. He honed his skills on day courses for amateur bakers at the Artisan School of Food in Welbeck, north Notts, and went on to bake his own wedding cake when he married his wife Eloise in 2012.
"I went down the writing route but carried on baking and that's where my passion lay," he said. His career took a turn though after leaving journalism, and a short stint in the world of PR, when he became a trainee baker at Welbeck Bakehouse in 2017.
"I remember when I had my interview at Welbeck they said where do you want to be in five years time and I said head baker. I wanted to show ambition," said Bryan, who achieved that goal by becoming head baker at Tough Mary's in Derby Road, Nottingham.
He started there just weeks before the pandemic and ended up a key worker, delivering bread to householders as well as baking, at a time when supermarket bread was scarce. He stayed at Tough Mary's for nearly three years, leaving to work at the Good Honest Bakery in Sherwood.
"I had just started there when this opportunity [the Sneinton unit] came up in tandem and I just couldn't say no," said Bryan. The unit, which was previously Ambigu Bakery run by Emilie Lowen, was already fully equipped.
"Emilie had been here about two years and she'd built up a bit of a core following. What attracted me was Sneinton Market Avenues was it seems an area full of good potential. There's lots of creative people here and everyone seems really friendly and passionate about this area.
"There was that announcement about the Creative Quarter finishing and there was a lot of uncertainty caused by that. People were asking traders if they were closing... no, we're alive and kicking. Being in this location, with Bustler over there, Neon Raptor over there, it seemed a good spot to fulfil my dream. Starting your own business is risky but this seemed like a low risk option."
The bakery is open Wednesday to Saturday from 9am and all the trade so far as been from passers-by and via word-of-mouth. "Lots of people living in Sneinton, Hockley, Lace Market and St Ann's are coming in and seem really pleased that there's a bakery open more regularly. I've had a lot of people coming back, repeat customers, so they must be liking what I'm doing. It's early days but I'm really grateful to everyone who has come along."
At his previous jobs Bryan was usually out-of-sight in the bakehouse but here he's face-to-face with customers and is enjoying talking to them about his passion for the products, which are freshly baked each day.
Instead of yeast, used as the raising agent in most commercial breads, sourdough, a leavened bread, is made using a sourdough starter - a live fermented culture of fresh flour and water, which has to be fed with more flour and water before baking.
Bryan said: "A sourdough starter is basically flour and water left to ferment. It takes a week or so for it to get nice and bubbly but that's what gives your bread life and a slightly different flavour and texture to your mass produced bread.
"You can squish it and it springs back. A lot of the mass produced bread if you squish it it almost goes back to dough. Because of the long, slow fermentation, sourdough is more digestible."
Sourdough costs £3.80 a loaf and rye £4. "The challenge is the price. Especially at this time, convincing people to pay a premium price for something they see as a staple is the challenge.
"But I like to think once people have tried it they'll see the time, effort and energy that goes into it. This bread contains flour, water, salt and the secret ingredient is a bit of TLC from the baker. The mass produced stuff is cheap but it's got preservatives, additives, all sorts of things. This bread is wholesome."
Customer David Bell, 38, of Bakersfield, said: "I really like the bread. It's simple, unpretentious, tasty and it's nice to support something local. I like all kinds of food... I like trashy food but I like nice properly made food as well and it's nice to have a variety. I'm buying custard tarts, sourdough and quiche which is incredible - there's a good depth of flavour."
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