Thanks for all your continuous support that helps motivating the food and beverages industry to go further in the hard time. Your vote helps lighting up the CITY OF FOOD. The result of OpenRice Best Restaurant Awards 2022 has finally come out. And the highest honor, Prestigious Awards goes to Bakehouse (Wan Chai) this year. Bakehouse honored the Best Restaurant in Wan Chai at the same time.
Reviewed that Bakehouse was honored in both the district and cuisine category last year, they keep their popularity and even strengthen this year. Since 2018, more and more branches were opened in different districts, like Tsim Sha Tsui, Stanley, Central and Causeway Bay. No matters how many branches have been opened, there still long queue in front of their shop.
Bakehouse mainly offers the natural bread and bakery products, with their homemade yeast and French organic flour. The croissant and the sourdough Portuguese Egg Tart are the most popular items. Grégoire Michaud, the experienced Switzerland bakery chef created the brand, whom had been worked for a 5-star hotel for 8 years.
Grégoire Michaud expressed his amusement, “ I haven’t expected that we can win this award. We get some awards sometimes, but this one is better than ever before. I think it is a great recognition from the people of Hong Kong, for us. We are very thankful for this.” He enjoyed the honor with his team, and give thanks to his customers.
Retained the initial intention, Grégoire Michaud is always tended to be a neighborhood bakery. “It is still what we want to do, and it is still what we are.” He looked back and felt so shocked and touching when he first saw the long queue outside the shop, which the bakery was just opened for 2 weeks. “I felt really touched, this person is waiting for one hour to try our sandwich or our soup, or takeaway. I think it is really crazy. I’ve never expected this to happen.”
There were tons of challenges during these 4 years, handmade product is one of the greatest challenges. It is because the quality will not be the same for each of the products and human have their own feeling and mood affecting the consistency of quality. Grégoire Michaud understand the restrictions, in the meanwhile, he has his own managing way, “You have to be contagious to your team, inspiring the people. You know you cannot comment the chef and said you are no good. You need to say okay, you did well but we can do better.” Remaining a harmony spirit among the team can surely enhance the team spirit. Another key point to success is the old word, practice makes perfect. “To solve the consistency issue, there’s no miracle. It’s just continuous trying, continuous improvement. Every day we look at the product, every day we challenge ourselves. This is the only way.”
The croissant is one of the signatures here. It is classic French style croissant. The flour is from France, and the butter is from New Zealand. It is crunchy, layers by layers and it is still very soft inside. You must attractive by its heavy buttery smell. “It is so classic, so simple, but it is difficult to make something simple good.”
The sourdough egg tart is so crispy and sweet, with the smooth inner side and tastes of the egg and caramel. It is made all day freshly.
Grégoire Michaud pays much attention to the quality. Thus it is very popular now but he plans to open 5 to 6 branches in maximum. “The upcoming Causeway Bay’s store is the fifth one. We want to control the quality and the consistency of our products. We know our capacity, we don’t want to have 50 stores in Hong Kong because we won’t be able to end the need. We want to keep it a quality driven business.” Therefore, for those who live in New Territories, let pray there will be the 6th branch open in N.T. one day.
Bakehouse
Add.: G/F, 14 Tai Wong Street East, Wan Chai
For more information and the result of Awards 2022. please click here