The Breadstall was created in 1997 by Sebastian Vince using a £200 overdraft and an old market stall he got in the South of France. He bought 300 ciabatta from Ticino Bakery in Bemondsey which were unlike anything that anyone had seen before in terms of freshness and quality. He piled them up on his stall on Portobello Market, sold out by 10am, and on the following Monday quit his job as a copywriter, which he wasn’t much good at anyway, and never looked back.

Next door, the savoury department is headed by Billi who's there 6 days a week in charge of making fresh baguettes and ciabattini for the sandwiches, sweet potato tortilla, blue cheese frittata as well as countless combinations of quiche. At luchtime, meter-long trays of pizza al taglio emerge from the oven topped with bubbling mozzarella, our own recipe tomato sauce and toppings too numerous to get into here.

The bought-in bread is all hand made by bakers that Sebastian knows personally, and over the years, The Breadstall has been one of the first people any new bakery or food producer calls on to showcase their products so there’s always something new going on here.