I sat down with Amber, founder of Bayon Bakery, who provides Babble’s cafe with our delicious, fresh pastries. They’re a local business based above Hove Station, where they have been operating for just shy of a year.

 

 

How did Bayon begin, and how long have you been going?

We opened on 15th September 2024. I was living over Hove Station years ago, and I always said that if the site above the station became available, I’d love to take it. I saw them put the for sale sign up in the window one day, and I kind of felt like it was fate, and a couple of months later, we were opening. Honestly, I’ve just always wanted to have a bakery.

When I was young, I was always in the kitchen baking cakes. I remember standing on the counter as a little kid with my grandma, making banana bread – before it was fashionable! I remember going to Ottolenghi’s in London around 10 years old and being fascinated by the counters full of meringue, cakes, and all sorts of wonderful treats. Having a bakery is a cute romantic dream that a lot of people have, and I’ve managed to make it real, and I’m so grateful for that.

 

Where does the name Bayon come from?

At my other establishment, our till menu was broken, so anything with bacon in its name was printed as bayon, like bayon sandwich. The sound of the word always stuck out to me, and I remember my staff joking that it would make a good name. When the bakery came along, I thought that the name fit perfectly with the new bakery.

 

How early do your bakers wake up?

So they get up super early. From as early as 4am and baking through till midday, because we always want you to have fresh hot products all throughout the day from open to close. The bakers leave around 5pm, and some go to bed as early as 8 pm. It’s a completely different time schedule. It’s easy to romanticise waking up early and getting to humble hard work while the rest of the world sleeps, until you imagine it cold and raining on a winter morning. But they do turn the ovens on when they get into the bakery, so that keeps them toasty.

 

What is your top-selling product?

Definitely the almond croissant. We have people queuing up before we open to get them fresh from the oven. It’s a really simple thing but its easy to get wrong, and I think we’ve absolutely nailed it. The secret to a good almond croissant isn’t very surprising: good quality butter and good quality almonds, and a good thorough process.

Making a good almond croissant properly takes two days. You have to laminate the butter through the pastry, stacking layers of pastry on top of layers of butter and rolling over and over again to create the flaky buttery layers, then you’ve got to roll and shape the croissant, then stuff them full of almond paste, then sugar coat them. All that over two days, and then it’s eaten and gone in 30 seconds.

 

Are you more of a classic bakery or do you enjoy experimenting?

I think every good bakery starts with the classic core product range, which is class and legendary for a reason. You’ve got your almond croissant, pain au chocolate, plain croissants, all the fan favourites. We also deal in a nice and simple range of sourdough breads. And now we’re starting to branch out into specialty items. Keep your eyes peeled for a new shakshuka pastry.

We also love taking inspiration from the seasons, for example in autumn fall time we bring out lots of seasonal blackberry crumble flavoured items, and we’re perfecting some ghostly treats with green custard. We’re always going to stock the regular baked goods but we want our customers to get excited when they see new limited-edition items on the shelf one morning that weren’t there yesterday!

 

What do you admire about your bakers?

They are masters of consistency. Over the summer it’s really hard with the natural heat to keep your baked goods consistent: butter melts, chocolate melts, everything melts. But the Bayon bakers are able to get quality consistent products on the shelves every morning and that’s just incredible when they’re fighting all the elements.

As well as that, equipment breaks more often than you’d think. We had a giant robot mixer break on us and so my head baker Andy dug his old pastry hand crank out of the garage and we were hand cranking dough in 35-degree heat for a few days. But every morning we had fresh products ready to go as always. So I definitely admire and am so grateful for their hard working consistency! Things never stop popping up but it’s all about how you tackle it and bounce back.

 

What’s the best part about the bakery life?

It has to be the customer feedback. The glowing feeling when people say how amazing our products are. We’re so blessed to have been open a year and have already had so much positive feedback and seen a community build around us. Our regulars bring us so much joy. And to have been able to have joined the bakery community in Brighton has been an honour as well.

 

Does being in Brighton add to your bakery in any way?

Being by the sea makes a big difference. There’s something magical about grabbing a croissant and a coffee and going to the beach to watch the waves while you munch and sip. As long as you don’t get attacked by seagulls.

 

If you could only have one baked good for the rest of your life what would you choose?

A French baguette. There is nothing better than a French baguette filled with loads of ham and pickles and butter.

 

What’s harder to deal with: smelling like yeast all the time or always being covered in flour?

Well, I don’t really mind the smell of yeast. Maybe I’ve become numb to it. But flour is really annoying because I’m usually wearing black and it ruins a lot of outfits. Definitely flour.

 

What does it mean to be an independent business in Brighton?

It feels like people are generally steering away from chains more nowadays, and Brighton is a super pro independent business kind of place, which is absolutely fantastic. But independence can be hard, because you don’t have the backbone of a more developed infrastructure. Now cheesy as it may sound, it’s true to say that more love and care go into our products because we’re independent, because we’re closer to our customers. You can taste the difference when the product is made with a personal touch. For an independent business, every time a transaction goes through the till, the owner smiles, because every customer matters to us.

 

What would you like to see for Bayon Bakery at Babble in the future?

We have been in talks about an exciting collaboration. All I’ll say for now is: think about incorporating beer yeast into bread. We know you’re going to love it!