I ate 13 courses of carbs at ASDA’s bread-only restaurant

Asda is behind the UK’s first bread-only restaurant pop-up. Kate Plummer finds out if it is more than the dough that rises to the occasion .

Bread is great. But 13 courses of the stuff? Really? (iStock)

How many courses of bread is too many courses of bread? How many sandwiches are too many to stand? When does a loaf of sourdough weigh so heavy on the soul that you, yourself, become sour? Answers to all these questions and more are what I seek at Asda’s pop-up bread restaurant. At London’s Baker’s Dozen, I am treated to 13 courses of bread-centred meals, partnered with 13 glasses of carefully selected wines for good measure.

Going out for a meal is an exercise in pageantry. I don’t have to tell you that we all need food to survive, but making it pop with rituals and theatrics is just one of the things we do to make life fun. We eat with our mouths, but also with our eyes and arguably our minds, so why not dress up and go out to do it? Or swap three-course meals for tasting menus? Or forgo a balanced diet to eat just a ridiculous amount of bread?

That’s the route Asda decided to take, at least. The supermarket commissioned research that showed nearly a quarter of Brits prefer bread to their main course when dining out, and a pop-up was born. (Conveniently, the restaurant also coincides with the re-launch of Asda Bakery and the introduction of over 200 new and improved bakery products.)

So here I am. And no other time is this truth about the theatre of dining out thrown into more stark relief than when a beaming man presents a tapas-sized triangle cheese toastie on a slate plate smeared with a dignified blob of ketchup before a sommelier explains which wine has been paired with the post-night-out snack.

There’s of course more to say, but a detailed review of 13 plates of yeasty rolls would simply be too many words to digest so let’s keep it pacey.

Sourdough dipped in chicken fat whipped butter – hot.

Bread salad with a random anchovy floundering on top – not.

Croutons with gazpacho soup (and the menu puts it that way round because bread is centre stage in this restaurant, lest we forget) – hot.

Croque Monsieur – not.

The Baker’s Dozen menu (Kate Plummer)

Then there are the courses that deserve more than a few crumbs of response. When I see “sourdough with marmite butter and pecorino” on the menu, I think “great.” You either love Marmite or hate it, so they say, and I’m lucky enough to be among the former group. But how good could the simple breakfast snack be?

Very. The deep-fried cubes of bread are crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside – the perfect texture. Take that and the fact they are soaked in just enough Marmite sauce to be salty but not overpowering, and then elevated with the complementary flavour of grated cheese fluffed on top and you’ve got yourself the perfect morsel.

Sourdough bread with Marmite and pecorino (Kate Plummer)

There’s a special place in my heart reserved for the Welsh Rarebit too. Soft cheese sauce laid down across a crunchy piece of bread made for a symbiotic duo of flavours and textures. I don’t know what they’ve done to that slice of bread for it to slap so hard, but slap it does.

Then there are chunks of dry fried tortilla wrap. It comes with yet more cheese and no sauce to provide that much-needed variety of flavour which they rightly say is the spice of life. I hit a wall.

Next are not just one but two bread-based puddings. And while committing to the theme is admirable, a slice of bread soaked in a fruity sauce and dressed up to look like a cake with berries (or “Autumn pudding”) tastes so savoury it feels like a prank, not a dessert.

Brown bread ice cream, though... I would surprisingly lick again. Mainly because it somehow tastes exactly like whipped brown sugar.

The Croque Monsieur, pan con tomate and Welsh Rarebit served as trio (Kate Plummer)

Aside from the taste, there’s something to be said about the chaotic effect eating 13 separate courses of bread (and 13 separate glasses of wine) in a punctuated procession has on the mind. Of course, the portions in a 13-course meal have to be pretty small, so when I hoover up one course at a lightning pace my dining companion tactfully likens me to a Venus flytrap. (It is the last time I “plus one” them to a press event, but that’s an issue for us to thrash out).

But then by the time course 10 arrives, I literally can’t stand the thought of eating another crumb and I’m considering going gluten-free.

So how many courses of bread are too many courses of bread? I can now confidently say the answer to this question is 10, but I wouldn’t have skipped a single one. Why? Because some meals out are about the experience rather than the food, the pageantry rather than the pecorino. Baker’s Dozen is one of them. But with bookings at the pop-up restaurant allocated via a now-closed ballot, unless you were one of the lucky winners you’ll just have to imagine what it is like to chow down on 13 plates of bread.

Unless you fancy trying it at home, of course – perhaps if you want a fancy way to carb load before the gym?