One baker, one bench, and a starter from Lyon

Amitha trained in Lyon, in a kitchen where the head baker refused to say the word “quick”. She came home with a jar of starter wrapped in a tea towel, fed it on stoneground Khapli wheat, and it is still the same culture in every loaf that leaves this studio today.

The first year was one oven, a domestic mixer, and a WhatsApp list of fourteen people. The list grew because the bread was worth planning a week around, not because anything was scaled. The studio has grown since — slightly. It is still one baker and it is still one bench.

Atelier Marvelle exists because there was nowhere in the city to buy the bread she wanted to eat, and because the moment you bake for stock rather than for people, everything that makes it worth eating goes.