I have to get this off my chest: I am the beneficiary of Pophams Privilege.
By which I mean that I live close enough to Islington’s pre-eminent bakery to pop by on the odd weekday morning, scoop up a couple of croissants and a coffee, and swan back home before work realise I’ve not been replying to my Slack messages.
We’re not all so lucky. Too many times I’ve walked past those poor, beleaguered weekend queue-ers, waiting half an hour just to find out the bacon and maple swirl is sold out. I’ve even joined them once or twice, either driven by insatiable craving or falling foolishly for the temptation of that week’s immaculately Instagrammable weekend special.
Pophams is, you see, a hype bakery. That’s arguably the biggest criticism you could levy against it: that its pairing of minimalist mid-century furniture and perfectly poised pastries is a little too pristine, too calculated, too meticulously designed to satiate the Algorithm over its actual customers. They have their own bloody homewares shop now, for God’s sake.
The only problem with that line of attack is that it falls down at the first hurdle, when you actually eat one of the things.
Pophams makes, for my money, the best croissant-based pastries in London. That may sound like a qualifier too far, but bear with me: the best bakes here by far are either croissants or things that re-purpose croissant dough in unhinged ways: spiralling it around bacon and maple syrup for the swirl that made them famous; nestling custard and fruit inside for the recurrent fruit specials; knotting it up into their extraordinary take on a cardamom bun.
The culmination of this ethos, for me, is in the hot cross bun. Pophams’ incarnation of Britain’s Easter obsession was first rolled out in 2022, and returned this week for its third outing.
Croissant off-cuts are twisted, turned, and re-worked to form the dough, adding a buttery richness that your supermarket bun could never. Mincemeat left over from the Christmas mince pies adds the currant kick, and it’s all topped off by a cross made out of more croissant leftovers, laminated to provide a crisp, shattering crust.
On Instagram this week, promoting its own hot cross buns, the St. John account bemoaned the “pointless excess” of novelties like salted caramel or chocolate and orange hot cross buns, instead celebrating “a gloriously, deeply evocative flavour that appears for one short season and then - no more.”
The St. John admin isn’t wrong, but I think one of the Pophams bakers’ great strengths is their ability to take the traditional and adapt it, evolve it, without losing its emotive heart.
Yes, the hot cross bun uses unusual dough, and replaces the flour paste cross outright — good riddance. But there’s a thoughtfulness about those changes, which preserve and accentuate the flavours and textures at the heart of the classic: a crisp cross, plump dried fruit, and the essential fact that any hot cross bun should be served slathered in butter. The Pophams bun is not traditional, but it feels like it is.
The Easter special apparently inspired one of the bakery’s now regular features, a cardamom bun that twists yet more croissant dough into a tightly packed knot. Again: the form is the same, the sweetened spice unaltered, but a structural tweak elevates the heavy breadiness of the Scandinavian staple into something at once lighter and richer, and undeniably more indulgent.
Best of all are the mince pies, now embarrassingly close to my favourite festive treat. These stray further afield: parcels of layered pastry are stuffed with aged mincemeat, but also ginger liqueur and clotted cream. It sounds outlandish, but the first bite is a moment of rapturous revelation: this is the boozy Christmas Day mince pie, served with a too-generous drizzle of cold cream, not de-constructed but re-constructed. The tradition is tweaked, but the essential elements are accentuated rather than altered.
Pophams is by no means perfect. I could bore you with arguments about the structural soundness of fruit pastries dominated by a whole half-plum, which look the part on Instagram but leave you alternating bites of plain pastry or full fruit while custard runs down your chin. The sourdough bread is good but not quite great — in London you’re spoilt for choice and you can do better. I’ve been for dinner just once, in the Hackney branch, and thought everything was delicious, but left feeling a little hungry and quite a lot poorer (again: the pasta is good, but it’s London, and ‘good’ doesn’t cut it).
All the more reason, then, to pick a pastry. The only problem is knowing which to pick, as I can never quite gravitate towards a favourite. Like so many I began with the bacon and maple, novel yet predictable: it is delicious in the simple, straightforward ways in which bacon, maple syrup, and heaps of butter inevitably are.
The Marmite, Schlossberger, and spring onion is my go-to savoury, rivalled only by sitting in to eat a piping hot ham and cheese croissant that towers imposingly over its plate. The cardamom came dangerously close to a default order when it was introduced, but the recent arrival of a honey and smoked salt swirl has me questioning everything again, bringing back the smoky sweetness of the bacon and maple but without the Epic Meal Time connotations.
So next time you’re round my way, pop to Pophams. But best do it on a weekend to swerve the crowds, and let me know when you’re on the way. Mine’s a, uh… well, maybe it’s best I just take a quick work break and come down with you to decide.
I had the privilege of living next to the London Fields one and was one of those people who'd sit in with a coffee, pastry and laptop for a good part of the day. They know how to make a good cafe!