Our head baker Matt has been with us from the start, and he’s basically family at The Sussex Kitchen. A master of all-things bread, he’s a big part of why our loaves, focaccias and bloomers are always on point, and strike the right balance of crusty and airy.
If you ask Matt when he first fell in love with baking, he’ll tell you it was at 13, when he started working at his grandmother's bakery in Hove making bagels and knot rolls for the local Jewish community. The rabbi would come to bless the place and make sure everything was kosher, and would always leave full and content.
Matt became fascinated by that -- how four simple ingredients (flour, yeast, water and salt) could make people so happy, no hidden trick needed. The straightforwardness of it all, but also the hard work that comes with labouring in a kitchen, won him over. He’s been a baker for 38 years -- and with us since we started, back in 2011.
Rain or shine, pandemic or post-lockdown reopening, you’ll find him in our kitchen, doing what he still loves best. We appreciate him for that.
Outside The Sussex Kitchen, Matt is a supporter of the Real Bread Campaign, a mission to find and share ways to make bread better for individuals, communities and the planet. When he’s not baking, he’s shooting his English longbow, mountain biking and playing guitar.