The best bakery on the Scottish island of Arran is moving to bigger and better location
The microbakery will be tripling in size
If you haven’t been to Arran before, you may have been surprised by people emerging from an alleyway behind Blackwaterfoot’s Kinloch Hotel while clutching baked goods.
They must have been visiting the wonderful Blackwater Bakehouse, which has been in operation since 2017. Now, this much loved bakery is moving from their tiny premises, where daily goodies like buttery and flaky copper-coloured croissants were laid out in a shed, and heading to a bigger property at Home Farm in Brodick.
It’s due to open later this month, just in time for the island’s tourist season.
We asked owner George Grassie to tell us more.
Tell us about the new space
It was the old Creeler’s restaurant at Home Farm in Brodick. It needed basically everything except the walls redone. So, you know, the full renovation - white boxing it, as the landlord says, and it's going to be lovely. It's a really great space. It’s taken the full complement of all the tradespeople we knew. Home Farm sort of needed something else, I think because that unit was empty for such a long time.
Why did you need to move from your long term spot in Blackwaterfoot?
There were limits there, in terms of delivery and retail. Basically, we reached the end of the road on the lease, and they're going to turn the bakery into staff accommodation and facilities. So personally, I think it's terrible for the village, but it was probably time to make a bigger space for myself. Blackwaterfoot is quite special though. It's got a great number of amenities for such a small place, which has its draw. I still love the west side of the island.
What will you be offering at the new location?
We're going to keep it simple, but we mean to get going with some extended offerings in terms of savoury stuff, seasonal bits and bobs and even foraged specials as well.
We’ll continue with the core range of classic French Viennoiserie, where we'll do croissants, almond croissants, pain au chocolat, cinnamon knots and cardamom knots. They’re always knocking around, but we rotate frequently. There will be specials like Eccles cakes, lemon tarts, Santiago tarts, chocolate cakes. I've got a long reel of things that we cycle through as a special set of extras. And I think we'll probably stay there, but I'd like to start with bread recipes. We're big on bread production, so we have some nice recipes. We like to showcase the very early types of wheat, like einkorn and beremeal. There’s a few special reasons to use them, including for bio diversity and crop resilience. So we're really trying to put some emphasis on all of those - we always have, but it's really nice to have somewhere where we might be able to engage a bit more. People understand a bit about the ethics behind the bakery, because that's been something we've always done, though the business side has taken over. People are just happy to get delicious bread, and that's the most important thing, but we do have that story.
Where do you source your ingredients?
Mostly, the smaller mills. We have quite a few different outlets, some of which we can get through Green City cooperative in Glasgow. They're very good for a one stop shop for the island. We talk directly to places like Barony Mill in Orkney. We use Gilchesters Organics flour from Northumberland, Doves Farms, Shipton and Scotland the Bread, on occasion, and Mungoswells.
Will there be room to sit-in at the new place?
There might be small amounts of seating in the retail space, but I'm hogging a lot of space for production, because we needed big toys. We're looking at having lots of outdoor seating, and maybe in the winter, we can throw some stools against the window for smaller numbers of people. It'll be mostly a counter classic bakery style, with a nice outdoor covered area. So we've got a colonnade out the front, and there'll be some planters. It's got lots of sociable spaces, but primarily, it's just production and retail.
Does most of your custom come from locals or tourists?
We've got a very steady and important loyal local clientele, and while it might not be a hugely commercial prospect to rely on them alone, if you don't have that, then tourism isn't going to help you. Apart from anything else, they'll buy weekly. If they're spending a tenner every week, then they're better than a rich tourist. We take care of them, and they take care of us with business and positive word of mouth - reputationally, they're very important. So we love our locals. There's an appetite for classic or real bread that doesn't die, so quality tries to be our main focus.
How is the island’s food scene at the moment?
I think everyone's been doing incredibly good work, just keeping in business and battling it against the tides. I know all the businesses, I work with them all, supply them all. I'm probably the oldest, but they're a nice, young, energetic crew, and they deserve little medals as food heroes. There'll be staff problems sometimes, and some bars and restaurants won't have a good cook for a season, but generally, I think it's still on the up and has resilience of its own, which is sometimes based on good fortune rather than great planning, because you can't plan here very easily.
Read more: “I've had 45 summer holidays on the bewitching Scottish island of Arran, but not this year”
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