Lannan Bakery

Viennoiserie drives the bake

Lamination is the centre of the work at Lannan. Darcie Maher’s Stockbridge bakery and pantry opened in July 2023 and made its name on classic viennoiserie, custard slices, pains suisses and cardamom buns, with the list changing often rather than sitting fixed on a board. Croissants and pain au chocolat are the everyday version of the same discipline, and they are the fairest test of it.

Maher’s route to that standard explains a good deal. She left school at fifteen, cooked for five years, was turned down by the Edinburgh bakeries she applied to, and took a job at a bakery outside Manchester instead. She came back to Scotland, spent the pandemic developing recipes and consulting for other bakeries, and was running the pastry programme at another Edinburgh bakery when the Lannan project was put to her.

A warm room on a Stockbridge corner

The room reads as designed but not precious: warm tones, marble-veined countertops, art on the walls and a croissant for a logo. A hatch lets you see into the kitchen and watch the team at work, so production stays part of the visit rather than being hidden behind a wall.

It is busy in a way that shapes the experience. Locals and visitors queue early and the case empties as the morning goes on, so working out what is still there when you reach the front is part of going. A later renovation moved the prep area downstairs to roughly double output while the pastries stayed on the top floor, which means the smell of baking still reaches the door before the counter does.

Start with the cardamom bun, then look at the slices

Begin with a cardamom bun if there is one, since it sits among the bakery’s signatures rather than at the edge of the case. From there the choice is textural: a custard slice for set custard between layers, a pain suisse for laminated pastry with crème pâtissière running through it.

Croissants and pain au chocolat belong in the same decision, because viennoiserie is what this bakery is for and where its reputation was built. Beyond that the counter can hold breads, buns, cookies, cakes and slices, while the pantry side extends the visit into artisan and local goods and ceramics. Treat the case as seasonal and changing, but anchor the order in the signatures.