Page 26 - Foodservice Magazine October 2018
P. 26

26
DINING
AT ONE WITH THE DOUGH
TIVOLI ROAD’S MICHAEL JAMES IS A RESTLESS INNOVATOR IN AN ANCIENT PRACTICE: THE ART OF BAKING BREAD. TIM GREY WRITES.
Michael James grew up eating supermarket bread. Born and raised in Penzance, a small village in the English county of West Cornwall, there weren’t many sourdoughs in his diet. “I
grew up on white bread at home. Looking back, what I used to make and eat was total rubbish,” he admits. “Supermarket bread was the same in the UK, which is horrible. It's cheap and easy and convenient. But it's rubbish for you, and the soil, and the health. There are a lot of chemicals and stuff that goes into it.”
Thankfully, your past does not define your future. Last year, for instance, James published the definitive cookbook on bread – by an Australian baker at least. Tivoli Road – the name of the bakery and the cookbook – would be high on the list of any globe-trotting yeast fiend. But it all began with one small step: getting out of Cornwall. “It’s not grim, but I just didn’t want to hang around and be your average Joe Bloggs, working in a factory,” he says. “There are a lot
of jobless people there, so prospects aren’t great. I had to get out. A lot of people in my generation went up to London, or America or Europe. So at 18, I moved straight to London and worked in five- star hotels and a few restaurants. I worked in a two-star for a while, actually in the city of London, which was extremely hard. But I just wanted to learn from the best people in the business.”
One of those people was Tom Aikens at Pied à Terre, a two- Michelin star fine diner in the heart of London. It was a slog, but James thrived. He’s a quietly-spoken man – but his intensity and ambition are obvious. “I didn’t really have a plan. I was just enjoying the bright lights of the big city, and working in the best places I could find,” he explains. “I was always looking for the next thing. And baking was where I ended up.”
As the young chef did the rounds of top-tier restaurants – including Villandry – he filtered through the stations, until he ended up where he belonged: pastry. “At the restaurants, I’d help after service making bread for the next day,” he recalls. “I just had an interest.”
However, it wasn’t until he and his wife Pippa (whom he met over the pass while she was working front of house) decided to move back to her homeland: Australia. It was then he decided to concentrate on bread. “I got into proper baking at Bourke Street Bakery in Sydney. That’s where I learnt. You’re kind of left on your own to pick it up yourself,” he says. “It’s kind of hard to teach because it just takes time. You’ve got to get a feel for it. And that’s pretty much the main thing.”
From there, James and Pippa made the move to Melbourne, where he took on a baking job at the legendary Baker D. Chirico.
Tivoli Road Bakery, South Yarra.


































































































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