New artisan bread bakery at STARS restaurant
“In time – not long from now – all the bread used in the restaurant will be produced in-house,” says Dror Zur of STARS restaurant in the Bayview Centre, Da Nova, Mossel Bay.
Zur and his team started baking artisan bread a few months ago and, due to popular demand, the bread-making expanded so much that it outgrew its space in the restaurant’s regular kitchen. “We now have three full-time professional artisan bakers working at their own space,” says Zur, explaining how they converted an old storeroom below STARS into a fullyfledged bakery.
“This new space also gives us the freedom to experiment with different breads and create a higher volume of products,” he adds. Currently the bakery is producing ciabatta and a range of sourdough breads, including wholewheat and 50% rye for the restaurant and for sale to the public. “We are also baking small ciabattas, especially for lunchbox-sized sandwiches and we will soon have baguettes. We are baking our own hamburger buns and pita breads,” Zur says. All the breads are made from specially sourced stoneground flour and the baking process can take up to 48 hours. “It is this process and our natural ingredients which sets our breads apart from, say, what you would buy mass market,” Zur says.
“The process involves a lot of folding and stretching of the dough, as well as plenty of carefully calculated resting time in between. All before we bake it. Also, we use live-cultured yeast and there are absolutely no chemicals added to make it rise faster or last longer, which obviously makes it much healthier,” he adds.