THE EARLY BIRD
38 Woodville Rd, Cardiff. 029 2132 0520 / www.earlybirdbakery.co.uk
Food: ****
Atmosphere: *****
If you’ve followed the news in recent months you may have come across the depressing statistic that Brits eat more processed foods than any of their European counterparts. Bread is a food staple that perhaps more than any has suffered from its transition to mass-production; this is why Ceri Johnston is nothing short of a foodie heroine for offering apprenticeships at her crowd-funded Cardiff bakery, one of a small number of British bakeries to do so.
The atmosphere in this bakery/café, open since 2015, is superb. Framed insects and retro railway ads share the white-washed walls with a collage of Polaroids chronicling the life and times of a busy artisan bakery.
The service is exceedingly friendly, and when the iced tea advertised on the blackboard menu turns out to be unavailable my server offers to concoct an alternative cold drink on the spot: a milkshake with chai syrup and cinnamon dusting.
After intense deliberation over the short but considered brunch menu – from the BBQ-themed ‘Cowboy Breakfast’ through to the ‘Nutella Fitzgerald’ French toast-fantasy – my friend and I both decided on the ‘Green Eggs and Ham’: sautéed spinach, smoked ham and a poached egg mounted on toasted brioche and drizzled with hazelnut pesto (£7).
We then settled in for a 40-minute wait – a bit of a let-down given it was a Tuesday afternoon and only a few other tables were occupied. When our brunches finally did arrive, however, they looked so perfect it almost made up for it. The poached egg oozed and the spinach was tangy. A shame, then, that it should all be covered in a pesto overpowered by garlic (and I’m someone who will gleefully spoon into a ‘Dracula’s nightmare’ soup, made of just chicken stock and a whole head of garlic). The brioche was the highlight of the dish, with a wonderful lightness and a beautifully soft crumb.
Evidently, bread is the Early Bird’s forte and passion, and I for one am more than happy to support Ceri Johnston and her army of apprentices in their (very tasty) mission to save the endangered craft of artisanal baking.
LB