Lockdown Bakehouse, just around the corner from Wandsworth Town Station and Over Under, was a chance discovery that I made when visiting in August, prompting me to call in on my return to the area last weekend. A product of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lockdown Bakehouse is just that, a bakery, which opened not long after the start of the pandemic. Since then, Lockdown Bakehouse has expanded as it’s evolved to meet the growing challenges of the pandemic, adding a small café, the subject of today’s Coffee Spot.

As well as selling the various loaves, cakes and pastries produced fresh each day from the bakery in the building behind the café, Lockdown Bakehouse offers a range of pre-made sandwiches and savouries, including pies, quiches and sausage rolls. Best of all, from a Coffee Spot perspective, is the top-notch coffee from Bristol-based Clifton Coffee Roasters, where a simple espresso-based menu is backed up by retail bags from various London roasters. While you can’t sit inside the café itself, there’s a large, partially-covered, outside seating area, plus a couple of benches right outside the door. Just be aware that Lockdown Bakehouse only serves in disposable cups, so don’t forget to bring your own.

You can read more of my thoughts after the gallery (photos from my August visit).

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Lockdown Bakehouse is on Ferrier Street, which runs along the southern side of the railway tracks immediately to the west of Wandsworth Town Station. One of a row of industrial units on the north side of the street, the café occupies the right-hand half of a single-storey brick extension in front of the bakery. This contains the takeaway counter and espresso machine, with retail shelves for the bread (left), savouries (right) and coffee (front), while there’s an outdoor seating area to the right.

Starting outside, you’ll find four four-person tables on a patch of astro turf, sheltering under an open-sided gazebo with a rollaway roof. There’s a fifth table off to the right, which is open to the elements, while a pair of benches sit directly in front of the café, one either side of the door.

You need to go inside to order, entering via a pair of sliding glass doors in the middle of the front of the Lockdown Bakehouse café. This leads into a rectangular space with the counter at the back, running the full width of the café. You’ll find the cakes here on the left, with the till in middle and the coffee operation on the right. In an early sign that Lockdown Bakehouse is deadly serious about its coffee, there’s a top-of-the-range Victoria Arduino Eagle One espresso machine and a Mythos 1 grinder, with the concise, espresso-based menu on the wall behind.

However, there’s a lot more to Lockdown Bakehouse than just coffee and cakes. The left-hand wall contains a series of shelves, stacked with that day’s baking, including sourdough loaves, bloomers and focaccia. Meanwhile, on the right, are the savouries, with pre-made sandwiches, toasties, pies, quiches, sausage rolls and various others, both hot and cold (plus ice cream). Finally, to the left of the door, against the front window, are retail shelves with bags of coffee. As well as Clifton Coffee Roasters, various local roasters are represented, such as Curious Roo (across the Thames in Chiswick), Press Coffee & Co and Urban Baristas.

Lockdown Bakehouse is very much rooted in the local community, although it might be moving premises in the next year or two, since the whole of Ferrier Street is scheduled for demolition and redevelopment. Don’t worry, though: Lockdown Bakehouse won’t be disappearing and is looking for nearby premises, ideally where it can continue baking and offer an expanded café.

Back to the present, and I visited twice, once at the end of August and again at the start of October, both times sitting out in the sun to enjoy my coffee. Lockdown Bakehouse uses the Village Espresso blend from Clifton Coffee Roasters, which I had as a flat white on both my visits, once in my Global WAKEcup and the second time in my HuskeeCup. Both were excellent, milk and coffee in perfect harmony to produce a rich, creamy flat white.

On my return, I had a sweet chilli, carrot, guacamole and cauliflower focaccia sandwich, which was excellent, but the highlight was from my first visit when, spoilt for choice with the cakes, I played it safe with a classic cinnamon roll. This was superb, with a rich, chewy dough, which was sweet without being either sickly or too sticky, and with just enough cinnamon that it wasn’t overpowering. Perfection.

December 2021: Lockdown Bakehouse was a runner-up for the 2021 Best Cake Award.

If you enjoyed this Coffee Spot, then take a look at the rest of London’s speciality coffee scene with the Coffee Spot Guide to London.

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