29 April
Florets Bakery
A few months ago, a beautiful new bakery appeared in Grey Lynn, Auckland... Let us introduce you to Florets.
When walking up to Florets you will be greeted by their array of bread in the window. Situated in a beautiful old building you will find a welcoming team, an aesthetically pleasing dining area upstairs and a menu that will make you want to come back, again and again.
We were lucky enough to chat with Maya from Florets Bakery about their beautiful bakery, sourdough, using local ingredients and more...
Hey Maya, thanks for chatting with us. Firstly can you please tell us a bit about Florets and how it all came about?
The inspiration for the bakery came while living in New York when I attended a workshop with the great sourdough baker Sarah Owens. At that time Sarah had a small baking atelier mainly used for training, but also small scale bread production.
I loved the intimate feeling of Sarah’s space, where there was a direct connection to the maker, process and raw ingredients. This feeling is something we have worked to carry forward to Florets. We chose this beautiful old Grey Lynn building divided across two levels, where customers are invited upstairs through the baking kitchen, as it's a welcoming space where customers can connect with our bread making practice.
Having recently opened a physical bakery in Grey Lynn, what have been the highlights so far?
Working as part of our team and having direct daily contact with our customers. It’s so rewarding to be able to share our process and the organic growing process of our producers with customers - Week on week we have more people coming back for their loaf and sharing how they enjoy eating it. It’s very encouraging.
Can you please run us through your menu?
Our menu changes seasonally. Our focus is always on the bread, great care goes into slowly fermenting our whole-grain bread, so we want to make sandwiches that showcase the flavour and texture of our different sourdough loaves. Our sandwiches are made with organically grown, local ingredients, at the moment my favourite is the beautiful heirloom tomato sandwich served on focaccia, with quark made by Hōepa, and Pomona deli charred peppers
I can see that you use a lot of local ingredients in your menu. Why is this important to Florets?
We always want the best flavour - and this comes from fresh, organically grown produce plus we are highly motivated to reduce the distance our food travels from the farm.
Thank you for using decent packaging, we’re always so grateful to have such amazing customers such as yourself using our products. What made you decide to use sustainable packaging?
We have a keen interest in reducing waste, all of our bread and sandwiches are wrapped in home compostable paper, and we want to make sure any take-away packaging we offer customers can be easily recycled. We were excited to find your clear cups for ice coffee - made from PLA, corn, which fully breaks back down into organic molecules.
Hard question, what is your favourite toast combination right now?
I love eating our Seeded Rye toasted with Pomona deli macadamia feta - whipped, Cavolo-nero, lemon and beans.
During these warmer months, how do you spend your free time around Tāmaki Makaurau?
I live in Titirangi, so visiting the West Coast beaches for evening walks is a fam favourite of ours, it’s always refreshing and seems to shift a mood if we’re a bit stuck. We also love swimming at Pt Chev and French Bay, depending on the tides and I also like walking up Auckland's volcanoes. Love eating pasta at Pici and drinking ice coffee while working at Florets, thanks to our lovely baristas Jemma and Taylor.
Lastly, can you please tell our readers where and how they can support you?
Would love to see you at the bakery :)
We’re located at 596 Great North Rd, Grey Lynn, 1021
Florets.nz (new website coming soon)
Thanks for your time Maya, we look forward to visiting Florets again soon.
