The extraordinary rise of bakery tourism: ‘People travel from all over the world. It’s mind-blowing!’

The pair are so-called “bakery pilgrims”, travelling significant distances in the pursuit of a fine loaf or bun. “Some of the time we were pushing through overgrown tracks, and there were lots of bogs,” Warren says of their journey. But their eventual reward was a soft brioche bun, filled with crème pâtissière and finished with crumble and berries.

I can relate. The siren call of the honey buns at Popty’r Dref bakery in Dolgellau, Wales, drew my wife and me from Oxfordshire, nearly four hours away. We tagged on a hike up Mount Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa), but it was really just a scenic spot to enjoy our bakery haul.

A couple of weeks ago, my family and I also travelled an hour or so to sample the babkas and honey croissants at Farro bakery in Bristol. Not long before that, it was a rhubarb-cardamom-brioche concoction at Pobl bakery in Talgarth Mill, near Hay-on-Wye. Both were well worth the journey.

But it turns out we are amateurs among hardened bakery tourists. Professional cyclist Maddy Nutt often plans long-distance routes around the promise of a croissant or a pain au chocolat. “I’ll go out of my way to get to the best bakeries,” she says, recounting a recent five-hour endurance ride from London to Ramsgate’s Staple Stores. A puncture meant she arrived three minutes before it closed. She spent £3 on a charity shop rucksack and took home what remained of the bakery’s daily output.

Long-distance bakery-seekers don’t mind a queue, and there is often a sense of camaraderie, with people who have travelled from far and wide swapping shop recommendations to pass the time. (The chewy almond thumbprint cookies at Briar Bakery in Ashburton, Devon, are one suggestion.)

In the UK, you rarely need to travel far to find a bakery. Greggs has more than 2,600 outlets. Gail’s, the chain associated with high-street gentrification, now has 170 branches. A pack of two croissants from a Tesco bakery costs £1.75.

But it is the rarer treats that attract the bakery tourists. Usually, these are created by small operations, run by an owner-baker from a single site. Many pride themselves on using sustainable ingredients, such as flour sourced from regenerative farming. The pastries are often an upmarket twist on the classics, as is the case with a kimchi and egg danish at Long Boi’s Bakehouse in Levenshulme, Manchester, and a spiral-shaped miso bacon escargot from London’s Arôme.

Journeying to a far-flung bakery obviously carries a carbon cost, but for many people this kind of travel has replaced other holidays or breaks they would have taken. There are plenty of social media influencers on the hunt for pretty pastries to gorge their feeds, but bakery wanderlust is bigger than that. In Korea, they have a word for the trend: “bbangjisullae” is a portmanteau of “bbang” meaning “bread” and “seongjisullae” meaning “pilgrimage”. Koreans, it seems, are increasingly prepared to travel to try the country’s best bakeries; some take overnight trains for fear of missing the morning’s limited supply.

On a bright Saturday morning at Bath bakery Landrace, pilgrims share the queue with local residents. “They all come for the cinnamon buns,” says manager Charlotte Briggs. At £4 apiece, these fragrant, springy coils have kept a spot on the counter since the shop opened in 2019.

Lycra-clad couple Tomos Owens and Hetty Niblett cycled nearly two hours to visit. “I just love croissants,” says Owens. “We’ve been out here in line when it has been -3C in winter.” The pair are trying as many spots as they can from the book Britain’s Best Bakeries, which was published last year.

Mother and daughter Chie and Karin Takita, from Ibaraki in Japan, included Landrace in their UK itinerary after Karin spotted its creations on Instagram. The pair came away with a newfound appreciation for hot cross buns – “So good!” – despite Chie’s previous impressions of “dry” British buns.

Cecilia Burgess, sitting outside the bakery with her nine-year-old daughter, Bella, tells how she first heard about another popular spot, Lovingly Artisan in Kendal, when it was voted among the best in the UK by British Baker magazine. “I drove for more than an hour from my parents’ home in Barnard Castle, across the Pennines, to get the sourdough. Everyone thought I was mad. To me, it was worth it!” At Landrace, Burgess’s favourite is an Italian-style croissant, with a filling of cream blended with pistachios that are roasted in-house.

Cecilia Burgess, sitting outside the bakery with her nine-year-old daughter, Bella, tells how she first heard about another popular spot, Lovingly Artisan in Kendal, when it was voted among the best in the UK by British Baker magazine. “I drove for more than an hour from my parents’ home in Barnard Castle, across the Pennines, to get the sourdough. Everyone thought I was mad. To me, it was worth it!” At Landrace, Burgess’s favourite is an Italian-style croissant, with a filling of cream blended with pistachios that are roasted in-house.

For bakers, renown can bring pressures. When Lannan first opened, says Maher, “we were busier than I expected. I was working 120 hours a week and sleeping on a foam mattress in the basement of the bakery.”

Thankfully, Lannan has now grown from two to 10 bakers. There have been rumours that some of the most sought-after bakeries deliberately limit supply, creating an artificial scarcity to push up the hype factor – but this seems absurd to Maher, who has spoken about maxing out the bakery’s oven capacity. Lannan is staffed seven days a week, despite only being open to customers Wednesday to Sunday.

A willingness to follow the breadcrumbs far across the map often comes from an appreciation of just how difficult it is to achieve baked nirvana. Many bakery tourists are home cooks who appreciate the chasm between their banana bread and the intricate hazelnut and vanilla poached pear danish from London’s Fortitude Bakehouse or the perfectly constructed rosemary and sea salt twists at Mabel in Norfolk.

Whether it’s on your street or halfway across the country, that moment when you step outside a bakery, open your brown paper bag and sample the goods inside is always a promising start to the day.