The Hunt for the Italian Baker

It began with a tip off from a woman with dark, fiery eyes.

Actually, to be more precise, it began with me complaining about how terrible the bread is in Nepal. I’m not usually all that much of a bread connoisseur at home, but I enjoy some good, savoury, soft-on-the-inside, crusty-on-the-outside, standard bakery bread to spread my vegemite on as much as the next Australian. Ergo, the Nepali version of bread, which is full of sugar and has the consistency of an Egyptian mummy – hard and leathery, but crumbles at a touch – has been an unexpectedly distressing element of life in Kathmandu. When we first arrived, I laughed as a fellow expat explaining the joys of the small things here told me how she and her once sister celebrated well into the night after finding a decent loaf of bread. Ha ha, I thought, I’ve seen bread everywhere. She must be really precious about her bakeries. That was before I found myself taking the three pieces of my toast that suffered continental drift in the bottom of the pan (as opposed to a toaster) and dipping them into the jam jar.

So when an Italian woman who works for the UN here asked me what I missed most from home over lunch one day, I immediately launched into a lengthy discourse on the shortcomings of Nepali style bread. Being European (where unlike the Mt Coolum bakery, they really pride themselves on staples like bread), she understood completely, and making a sympathetic face, said, “You have to understand that all bread here is just an imitation. But you really should try the baker up near the British School. He was trained by an Italian and it’s the closest thing to bread from home in Nepal.”

Having had my heart broken several times by now after following various recommendations only to find them all exactly the same – awful – I was sceptical. But we got the directions and set off that afternoon to try the Italian trained baker out.

Our first mission was to find the British School. We found the turn off (“down past the Banana Cat Café and right at the round about near the shop with the good looking tomatoes” and walked for what seemed like miles against the stream of motorbikes, carpet sellers, housewives, fruit vendors, small children and the occasional expat on a bike wearing a helmet. Eventually we found the school, where it was expected to be. Hooray, we thought, not so difficult afterall. Warm bread in two minutes. Alas, the next turn off (“a little lane with three houses, just on the left”) proved more elusive. We wandered along the length of the British School for half an hour, peering hopefully down the dozens of lanes packed with houses, looking fruitlessly for something indicating the presence of the best bakery in Nepal. Eventually, stomachs growling and feet aching, we struck up a one sided, English and hand language conversation with the Nepali speaking British School guard. While he had no idea why the badeshis were treating him to a display of rubbing their stomachs and eating their fingers, a passing British man took pity on us, asked if we were looking for the Italian baker, and led us to the right street, which oddly enough, really did only have three houses.

Great, we thought, almost home. All we had to do now was go to the middle house, shower them with praise for their very clever bakery disguise, buy our loaf and go. But the middle house was shuttered away behind some formidable looking steel gates and the porch of the house behind was littered with school bags and washing and ladies shoes. The much anticipated bakery sign was still noticeably absent. So we stood out the front for a while, kicking the stones and hoping some one would come out and ask us if we would like some of the best bread in Nepal. No dice. Eventually we plucked up the courage to walk in to what was obviously someone’s private home and knocked on the door, thinking perhaps they could at least give us some more directions. But a woman wearing a flour dusted apron answered the door and without even asking us what we were there for, ushered us past a lounge room with children watching TV and into a back room which looked like a old bakery straight out of provincial Italy. Big stone oven, solid looking wooden tables and piles of bread and pastries. Not just any bread – ciabata, focaccia, brioche, quiche, cakes, all manner of continental delicacies. Slightly over wrought from our ordeal thus far, we held back tears, picked out a loaf, handed over the very reasonable sum of 45 rupees and wended our way home.

And now we know where to buy bread in Nepal. It’s not the same as home – it’s a little more exotic than I’d like for my daily breakfast – but it’s certainly a reasonable substitute and well worth the adventure.