Bread Ahead Bakery School | Borough Market — Local services in London

Let me save you £95 and potential illness by sharing my experience at Bread Ahead’s doughnut workshop.

If you enjoy watching basic concepts of food safety protocols being trampled while the staff and upper management simply shrugs their shoulders at you, you’ve come to the right place.

Picture this: an industrial kitchen where hand-washing is treated as an optional suggestion rather than a fundamental requirement other than at the very start of the class. No guidance on cross-contamination, workspace hygiene, or even the basic concept of not touching your phone without re-washing your hands. But wait, it gets better.

Despite their workshops’ Joining Instructions prohibiting any participants with cold/flu/Covid symptoms (which have - gasp - conveniently vanished from their website since pointing this out to them), I had the pleasure of sharing the workspace with Patient Zero, who treated my workstation like her personal laboratory for breeding germs.

When this person literally turned around from her station and COUGHED ONTO MY DOUGH, the chef's professional response? “The deep fryer will kill the germs.” Brilliant - just what I paid £95 for.

The sick participant’s greatest moments included: nose-blowing (without re-washing her hands), picking her teeth with her bare fingers (without re-washing her hands), and treating my workspace like her personal coffee table. All while the staff stood by, apparently having graduated from the “See No Evil, Hear No Evil” school of food safety.

The chef also suggested not to share the contaminated doughnuts with immunocompromised people, which speaks volumes. Imagine a business fully admitting that their products might not be safe for vulnerable people, yet seeing no issue with this.

If I stood outside a Bread Ahead and told prospective customers that their doughnuts had been coughed on by a sick person, AT ANY POINT IN THEIR CREATION, I can guarantee that the customers would turn around and go somewhere else.

When I raised these concerns with management the next day, their response was both delayed and dismissive. It’s clear they consider basic hygiene an inconvenient burden rather than a vital necessity.

They refused to refund my £95 for what essentially became a masterclass in cross-contamination. I’m still waiting for a refund on a separate workshop after 10 working days, because there’s no way you could pay ME to attend another one of these workshops.

Want to experience a kitchen environment that would make Food Standards Agency weep? Bread Ahead is your destination. They’ve truly mastered the art of turning £95 and your trust in a business into regret, a breeding ground for germs, and a reason never to set foot in there again.

Save your money - there are plenty of other bakeries that understand the revolutionary concepts of basic hygiene.

PS - Yes, I did get a cold after...

I attended the Academy, I was taught by the head of the Academy and teacher Weigela, which is a 6 month course teaching all many different types of breads and pastry skills. The course also features work experience at the Bread Ahead sites in Borough Market and Wembley.

I would thoroughly recommend this course to anyone who wants to learn about bread and patisserie on a large scale. The group size was small, I felt like this benefited the experience as I could’ve received the necessary amount of support for me to succeed.

Even though I joined the Academy to learn about bread, I found that I learned a lot in the pastry modules as well. I learned about the importance of understanding the recipe you are following and ensuring you are triple checking with every step.

The work experience provided valuable insight into how a bakery actually operates. The Borough Market site focuses on the pastry side of the business. It was fascinating to see how well utilised the space is. Throughout my time at Borough, I felt like I was part of team and my contributions were appreciated.

The work experience at Wembley was completely different, but in a good way. At Wembley, the focus is on breads. I thoroughly enjoyed being part of the mixing process. It was interesting to see how everything matters, with any mistake having consequences for everyone.

Weigela was an absolutely fantastic teacher. She is extremely knowledgeable not only in all the areas we covered but in other areas as well. She is extremely dedicated to ensuring the experience is a positive one. Even though it is a serious course, we still had a lot of fun together throughout the learning process.

I think the Academy is an excellent experience and I would highly recommend this course to anyone who is thinking about...

My son and I attended the mini masters academy which was a summer session for kids and as I understand, was only in it's 2nd year. We were told to get there 10 mins early but despite all doing this, it didn't start until 10 mins into the session as they were still getting the room ready. The space is big but you don't get a station each and all the kids are just sitting around a large table. The teacher was great but it's not very educational. Everything was already pre-weighed apart from the flour and the egg was already cracked and scrambled and put in a small tub. The kids just ended up tipping things into their bowl and there was no teaching them why they had to do certain things or use certain techniques. It was basically like a session you could have done at home and as everything was already pre-weighed, the session ended 20 mins early so despite advertising it as a 2 hour session, it's really only 1.5 hours. It's not bad for the price but we could have easily just replicated it at home with it being nothing special. Instead, I'd recommend the baking experience at the Langham for a more interactive session with individual stations and plenty of baking involved, and personally worth the much higher price because they actually do teach in that session and you practically get the full Langham afternoon tea experience included in the price for you and your child aswell as the 3 hour...