Honey - Golden: sweet & savory baked delights from the ovens of Londons Honey & Co

Honey & Co.: The Cookbook

With all my love and admiration to my amazing parents (Hazel and Jeff).

You inspire me. Sarit

To my mum (Eilat) for her love and all the sweetness in life. Itamar

I got hunger. Alice Russell

A restaurant, even a small one like ours , is a watering hole, a crossroads where people meet (by chance or design), to rest, to replenish. Dozens of people from all walks of life in Londons mad parade pass through our doors every day, all through the day. From the quiet early-morning coffee and Fitzrovia bun for the road, through the manic, slightly crazed rush of lunch, to the last licked dessertspoon of dinner, our ten tables will be set, cleared, cleaned and set again constantly. An endless stream of suppliers and delivery men fill our stores and fridges with produce from all over the world: British berries, French wine, Lebanese spice, nuts from California, chocolate and vanilla from the African shores, Indian rice, cut flowers from Hollandall find space under our tiny roof, for the pleasure of our customers and ourselves.

A restaurant can have a life of its own. It can grow so quickly, seemingly unaided; at first it was just the two of us, doing everything, but now there are many of us working in Honey & Co. As I write this we have three pastry chefs and five chefs in the kitchen, three kitchen porters running up and down the stairs, seven waiters and shift managers working the floor upstairs, Louisa in the office and the two of us, trying to find a bit of space to work.

A restaurant is a machine with many moving parts. In order for things to fall into place time and again, it needs to have a culture, a routine, and at the heart of our routine is our baking. Even though it is only a part of what we do, the pastry section is the backbone of the operation, the driving force and the powerhouse. What baking requires represents everything we want our staff to have and our customers to feelconsideration, concentration, experience and patience, of course, but also a lot of passion, greed, an eagerness to please on an industrial scale and a great big heart. Our days are governed now by the rhythm of the pastry: weighing, mixing, kneading, shaping, baking, chilling, glazing, serving.

A restaurant takes the shape of the people in it, customers and staff. We never planned to have such an elaborate pastry offeringI originally thought we would do only one type of breadbut the selection grew rapidly. The cakes came about because we wanted something tempting in the window to lure people in, the desserts happened because of a friends remark, the breakfast bakes because we needed to bring the morning trade to life. It all seemed gradual, almost accidental, but with hindsight I can say that the growth of our pastry was inevitable. I am a complete sweet tooth, always dreaming of new cakes and sweet things, while my wife has been baking all her life, and has a great passion and talent for it. You could almost say that baking is her favorite form of interaction with the world. I dont think Im biased in considering her one of the best bakers in the world (although of course I am), and all of us at Honey & Co, employees and patrons alike, are united in our admiration and love for her gift. And the rest of the team are just as sugar-mad as we areGiorgia, our pastry chef, lights up most when she talks about cakes; Julia and HD are always snuffling up the sweet offcuts; the girls upstairs argue constantly about which cake is their favorite, and each tries to convince our customers that their choice is best.