My kingdom for a respectable loaf

"Acorns were good until bread was found."

-- Francis Bacon

In any new location, finding decent bread is a priority. I'd been spoilt by Barbakan back in Manchester, and I am a complete bread snob in any case. A life with mediocre bread is not worth living.

Pickings were slim. Tasteless crappy Chorleywood process sponges masquerading as bread line the shop shelves. Places that call themselves "bakeries" tend to sell pastries, or pasties, or sometimes both. It started to look like I'd be making my own bread, which I am not unhappy to do, but I prefer to leave these things to the experts.

An internet search revealed a review of a bakery at the top of the Shambles. The reviewer didn't know the name of it and so simply dubbed it "Mystery Bread Shop". It sounded promising so I scoped it out one afternoon. I knew it would already be shut but I wanted to find it for future reference.

I walked right past it at first. It is a small red building. A sign in the shape of a shield sporting a gold saltire hangs over the street, and wire mesh covers the window. There is no writing on the frontage whatsoever, no pictures of bread or wheat, nothing to indicate just what it is. I have since learned that the bakery's proper name is Via Vecchia.

I wasn't sure what time it opened, so one morning after an early run and some breakfast, I left the flat at eight o'clock to see what I could find. It was a lovely time of day to be out; York seemed more like a regular, if exceedingly charming, town and less like a medieval theme park. Without the throngs of tourists saturating the streets, it only took me ten minutes to walk from our flat to the Shambles.

This time the door was open. Sample loaves of bread, all labelled, lined the counter of the small shop. The rest idled on wheeled cooling racks. A handsome, stoic man in an apron served me. I think handsomeness, stoicism and apron-wearing are all admirable qualities in a baker. And damn if the bread isn't fantastic. No more acorns for me, then.