Like every year, Club Matador has made its unique tasting of artisan breads, a kind of Oscars for the bakery that, according to the queues that usually form in the bakeries that win, could well be considered the Ben-Hur of bakeries.
Interestingly, we can think that the winners will always go to trend-laden neighborhoods (what is known as trendy), although we see that the fever for sourdough and artisan breads is rising in Madrid without the need to use any type of artificial yeast and even in neighborhoods with as much tradition as Virgen del Cortijo They are put on this unique map.
This is what happens in this 2022 with the breads it makes michael castrothe man behind the flours Tide Bread (Calle de Oña, 125), a young bakery that in just two and a half years has positioned itself within the Madrid Panarra Olympus.
And it is not easy, especially seeing the roots that some of the competitors in this edition had, competing with bakeries as famous as San Francisco Workshop or with other places that are also fashionable such as Alma Nomad Bakery either Obrador Clan in this very final which, logically, many other breads that are presented annually at this tasting have not reached.
With an exceptional jury, chaired by José Carlos Capel, one of the most veteran and influential gourmets in Spain, Marea Bread has managed to take the cat to the water with a loaf of kilo where the only ingredients that can be used are wheat flour, water, yeast and salt.
Then there is the mastery of each baker, in this case of Castro, who Upon his return from California, he decided to venture to set up this workshop in a popular neighborhood on the outskirts of Madrid such as Virgen del Cortijo, today engulfed by the surroundings of Sanchinarro, but which continues to maintain the backbone of this neighborhood around Oña street beyond the M-30.
With that almost domestic vocation, Castro opened Marea Bread in early 2020ruminating a good part of the pandemic among his masses, which helped him to perfect the technique with which he had started in San Diego during his American journey, at which time he began to make his own bread at home.
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A kind of American dream for which it would be worth putting the soundtrack of The Mamas & The Papas and their California Dreaming while we try to snag one of these precious loaves that, by the way, also has gluten free options.
Images | Bridge Communication
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