DAVID DONDE, the founder of world-renowned Truth Coffee and Origin Coffee, opened Flour Market, a working bakery on Hope Street in Gardens. Where Truth turned coffee into theatre, Flour Market does the opposite: bare walls, hard surfaces, and ovens lit hours before dawn.
Breakfast and fresh goods are served daily from the shopfront, but the real business runs on wholesale. Flour Market’s bread now supplies some of Cape Town’s best restaurants and cafes, largely without public notice. “A good sourdough gets more interesting the longer you have it,” says Donde. “Save a piece for day six and you’ll taste what I mean.”
The white-collar dining rooms of the city, the ones with the linen and the wine lists, are quietly running on Flour Market’s blue-collar graft. Every loaf begins with heritage wheat and a starter Donde’s bakers have tended for over two decades, built through poolish and levain methods rather than shortcuts, and finished in a wood-fired oven.
The kitchen is led by senior chef Laurence Smith, whose background includes Delaire Graff, Whatley Manor and stages at Noma, alongside executive chef and head baker Marcus Fundi. Between them, Flour Market’s baguette, sourdough and croissant programme is built on process rather than performance: a 60 to 65 percent hydration poolish for the baguette, a starter fed daily on wheat and rye, and an eight-turn lamination for the croissant, each finished in the same wood-fired oven.
For Donde, Flour Market marks a return to fundamentals after two decades spent building brands around spectacle, trading theatre for fermentation done slowly, by hand, and without shortcuts.
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