Quince Bakery is hosting its third Pie Party on 31 August, bringing together a line-up of independent bakers from across London.
The annual bank holiday Monday event was created in 2024 by former The River Café executive pastry chef Anna Higham, the same year she opened her Quince bakery in Islington. It has seen customers queuing down the street from the shop to sample a specially curated selection of bespoke savoiry and sweet pies.
This year, the offering will include creations from Higham and her bakery team – Chris Bennett and Riley Labrache – along with pies by Hai Lin Leung of Lucky Yu Bakery, Chloe-Rose Crabtree of Bake Street, Tom Zahir of Decatur, and Sofia Vasquez of Hamblin Bread. There will also be items from pastry chefs Stroma Sinclair and Louis Thompson, and cook Hugo Harrison.
Details on each pie are to be revealed in the week prior to the event, with individual pies or slices priced from £6 to £10 and large sharing pies costing between £12 and £18. Doors to Quince Bakery open at noon, with plenty of queue snacks to be offered to attendees – pies are sold until they run out.
Quince has also completed a successful crowdfunding campaign to open a brand-new all-day café called Clementine directly opposite on New North Road. Having been hoping to raise £50k, the company received just over £30k in total from 373 supporters via the Crowdfunder online platform.
The 20-cover café will launch on 3 October and is said to extend the Quince experience into a dedicated breakfast, brunch, and lunch setting. It will open on Wednesdays to Sundays and feature a menu that changes with the seasons. Leading the kitchen is Marcus Westlake, who has joined from Forno bakery in nearby Hackney and previously worked at Brawn restaurant.
During the kickoff season of autumn, mornings will begin with the likes of tattie scones with scrambled Cacklebean eggs; Scotch pancakes with Abbey Farm butter and poached plums; and Staffordshire oatcakes with Gothelney Farm bacon and Appleby’s Cheshire cheese. Sausages, used for sandwiches on Batch bread with housemade brown sauce, are supplied by local butcher Stella’s and made using breadcrumbs from Quince leftovers.
For brunch, there’s warm scones with Ivy House cream and jam, as well as brown butter buns. Then at lunch, customers can expect a Westcombe Dairy cheddar toastie, chicken and tarragon pie; a late summer vegetable soup; and a Ploughman’s lunch of Kirkham’s Lancashire cheese, Gothelney ham, pickles and country bread.
Sweet treats for afternoon pick-me-ups include oat cookies and figgy meringue cake. Coffee is supplied by Allpress and Red Bank, and there’s also a rotating cordial list featuring combinations such as fragola grape & damson, or peach & fig leaf.
Interiors are designed by Dan Wilson Studio, who were behind Quince’s “warmly considered bakery”. Said to draw on the clean lines of Shaker design and the handcrafted spirit of the Arts and Crafts movement, the space is built around oak, slate worktops, and a tiled fireplace. Carpentry is by Herb Palmer, and walls are finished in a bespoke colour developed by British paint brand Atelier Ellis. The façade will be painted in clementine leaf green beneath a clementine-coloured awning, with a lit fibreglass clementine above the door.
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