Sourdough Sophia is truly a bakery born in the community.

During lockdown founders - Sophia & Jesse set up a micro bakery from their dining room as a way to support and connect with the community.

Sophia, having grown up as a baker's daughter in Germany, and having been an obsessive home-baker throughout her life, had always secretly wanted to own a bakery of her own in order to be able to share her delicious creations.

The lockdown dining room bakery turned out to be the perfect opportunity to bring this to life!  Within a couple of weeks they attracted huge queues down the road from their little flat, and quickly ran out of space.

They began baking sourdough bread and laminated pastries for their neighbours, built on a few values that still set the bakeries apart today: sustainable, quality ingredients, artisanal techniques, an ever-changing menu, and a proper homage to the comforting classics. Food that makes you feel good.

With the help of a successful Kickstarter campaign and nearly 600 backers from the local community, they opened the doors to their very first high street bakery on Middle Lane in Crouch End in December 2020, just eight months after that first loaf came out of the oven at home.

The queues grew, the team grew, and pretty soon they ran out of space. So in March 2024, backed by a few incredibly successful crowdfunding rounds, they opened their second bakery on Essex Road in Islington, giving the baking the bigger home it deserved.

Highgate and Hampstead followed in 2025, then the arches at Spa Terminus in Bermondsey, Primrose Hill in May 2026, and in July 2026 they opened their first central London bakery at 16 Neal's Yard in Covent Garden. That makes seven bakeries, every one of them funded by the community that started it all. Sophia, Jesse and the team have their sights set on twenty, and can't wait to join plenty more neighbourhoods along the way.