Why go
Milled on site, baked under the arches
The flour at E5 Bakehouse is rarely more than a day old. The Hackney bakery and café mills roughly a ton of grain a week on a French Astrié-style stone mill, drawing from a four-ton silo of low-protein UK wheat, Gilchesters Organics heritage wheat and Cann Mills spelt and rye. Bakers start at 3am. Everything else follows from flour, water, salt, fermentation and the neighbourhood whose postcode gave the place its name.
Ben Mackinnon founded the bakery after a career as a sustainability consultant in renewable energy, first baking on a sabbatical in Spain and then deepening the obsession in Fez. A five-day course at The School of Artisan Food sent him home to make dough, borrow the wood-fired oven at Vesuvio in Clapton and deliver 15 to 20 sourdough loaves a week by hand or bike to neighbours, Palm 2 and Leila’s. The bakery took its first railway arch under London Fields station in May 2011 and now runs across three.
Hackney Wild and the long ferment
Hackney Wild is the loaf the rest of the range orbits, built on a wild culture perpetuated batch to batch and a fermentation that runs to about 72 hours. Dough rests overnight at 5°C to build organic acids, is folded over several hours, then proved in bannetons or linen. Russian rye, spelt, seeded rye and Stockholm fill out the bread board, with pastries, cakes, sandwiches, soups, ferments and jams beside them.
More than 300 loaves leave the arches on a busy day, and a share of them still go out by bike to around 30 Hackney kitchens and shops, Brawn, The Empress and Fishhouse among them. The scale is deliberately capped. Growth has gone into milling and fermentation rather than into more outlets.
Where to start
Start with Hackney Wild if bread is the point: it reads the stone-ground UK flour and the batch-to-batch culture more clearly than anything else on the shelf. From there the choice is a matter of style, rye for depth, spelt for sweetness, Stockholm for something darker and denser.
Lunch pulls in salads, organic spreads, peanut butter and wood-fired pizzas and pizzette such as the Hugo. Coffee is not an afterthought either: the beans are drum-roasted at E5’s own Tower Hamlets site, and the flat white is as considered as the loaf, with Bonsoy for anyone off dairy.
Frequently asked questions
What should I order first at E5 Bakehouse?
Hackney Wild, the wild-cultured sourdough the rest of the range orbits. It is fermented for about 72 hours on flour milled at the bakery, so it shows the grain more clearly than the rye, spelt or Stockholm loaves. Add a flat white made with beans drum-roasted at E5’s own site.
Does E5 Bakehouse mill its own flour?
Yes. The bakery mills about a ton of grain a week on a stone mill, feeding from a four-ton silo of low-protein UK wheat, Gilchesters Organics heritage wheat and Cann Mills spelt and rye. Flour is generally half a day to a day old before it goes into dough.
Compare nearby places
| Venue | Type | Area |
|---|---|---|
| Ozone Coffee - London Fields | Café | Hackney |
| Fortitude Bakehouse | Bakery | Bloomsbury |
| St. John's Bakery - Neals Yard | Bakery | Covent Garden |
| Claridge’s Bakery | Bakery | Mayfair |
| Cremer | Bakery | Hoxton |
