Adrián Bernáth and his team behind popular Pizza Manufaktúra have used the shutdown to learn a new craft: baking. After a decade of rolling pizza dough, the PM crew have turned to bread and baked goods, setting up shop in up-and-coming District IX. Declaring Hello Mester utca!, the Manu Bakers Club has just opened, on the street in question, close to the Grand Boulevard.
For aficionados of Italian food in Budapest, Pizza Manufaktúra needs no introduction, their Roman-style delights gradually conquering the city for ten years, and Neapolitan varieties available at Manu+ by Astoria. While pizza delivery continued during the pandemic, as a fallback, they started experimenting with baking bread – have oven, will try – and began to offer their own baked goods before restrictions lifted.
The Manu Bakers Club operates within easy reach of Erkel utca, allowing for the swift delivery of fresh wholemeal bread, chocolate pillows, scones and apple or cherry galettes from there. Thanks to a year of experimentation, they have already learned how to prepare them using a pizza oven, so they can produce each outlet’s speciality in separate shifts. The end result is rustic in nature, baker Bálint Nagy preferring traditional methods.
Different doughs are used for different pastries, for example, a little cocoa is added for the fermentation of wholewheat bread, not airy and malleable but compact and chunky, with a characteristic flavour. The tiny place has just enough room for a coffee machine, espressos, cortados, cappuccinos, lattes and flat whites offered thanks to Coffee Stand, just off the Grand Boulevard on Gutenberg tér.
Wholewheat and oatmeal loaves are priced at 800 forints, big sesame-seed rolls, 450. After a soft opening last week, cinnamon babkas, jam buktas, cottage-cheese and crackling scones, and savoury pretzels flying off the shelves like hot cakes, the Manu Bakers Club has opened this week.
Manu Bakers Club
District IX. Mester utca 4-6
