There is only one bakery in all of France
In order to get a sense of the bakery, you should look at what is missing. In my neighborhood, within a quarter-mile radius of where I am presently sitting, there are four butcher shops, two general grocery stores, three fruit stands, five patisseries, a brewery, the bottle shop for another brewery, three wine shops, two cheese stores, and no fewer than seven specialty épiceries. Three days a week, for four hours in the morning, a flea market pops up, containing a half-dozen organic farmers. For a fourth day, a separate farmers market appears on the other side of the same square. The abundances in this neighborhood are so shocking that, one month into my time here, I am still processing all of it.
And there is one bakery. One. In France. A country that insisted on getting its most boring bread protected by UNESCO. One bakery.
There is not one bakery because I exist in the outer fringes of society. There is not one bakery because of rising rents. There is not one bakery because millennials are killing bread. There is one bakery because the bakery is fantastic.
You can tell it’s a good bakery because it’s about 20 square feet of floor space in front of a counter, and that counter is in front of a dozen ovens, hundreds of baking trays, a half-dozen people working at a full clip, and every single surface is covered in flour. The ceiling is browned from blast marks. The menu is out of date; one orders by pointing at a glass case, or at a row of loaves on a wall. There is always a line, and that line stretches to the middle of the sidewalk. Nobody cares. Everyone sees it coming. Some stop to wait in line. Everyone is smiling, talking to each other.
You have never heard of this bakery, but you’ve absolutely heard of the bakeries that influenced it: Poilâne, maybe, or Tartine. Baguettes are on offer, but nobody really cares, because everyone is here for sourdough, correctly.
The fruit stands & grocery stores are more defensible but probably lower margin, lower growth, and lower work. But they are also likely to be less celebrated by the community. This is because fruit is grown, but bread is crafted.
I wonder what happened before this bakery. Were there other bakeries? Has this one just been around for a while? Was the process of bakery dominance gradual or sudden? Does anyone remember or care?
In what ways do we look at a city and notice the absence of something? How does this become apparent as we spend more time there?