Let me divulge a little-known fact that most chefs would rather I did not mention: very few of them bake their own bread. A few insist on executing this intensive labour of love – but not the majority. Investigating the commercial arrangements between chefs and the bakers they work with revealed a more secretive world than I had expected.

    让我透露一个鲜为人知的事实，或许大部分厨师宁愿我保密：很少厨师自己烘焙面包。某些厨师——但并非大多数，坚持热爱这项精细的劳动。对于厨师和面包师之间的商业合作的调查，揭开了一个比我想象中更加秘密的世界。

    My investigation began after a conversation with one baker who supplies London's leading hotels and restaurants with more than £750,000 worth of loaves, croissants and rolls a year. He had just had lunch in one of the restaurants he knew his driver had delivered to that morning but, out of curiosity, he asked the waitress who supplied the restaurant with their bread. She didn't know the answer, went off to the kitchen and returned a couple of minutes later to say how pleased they were that he liked the bread as they had baked it themselves!

    我的调查始于与一位面包师的谈话。这位面包师每年为伦敦顶级的酒店和餐厅供应超过75万英镑的长条面包、牛角包和面包卷。他刚在一家餐厅用完午膳，而这家餐厅是当天早上他的司机送面包的其中一家，出于好奇，他问服务员餐厅的面包是谁供应的。服务员不知道，便往厨房询问，数分钟后，她回来，说他们非常开心，因为他喜欢他们餐厅自己烘焙的面包！

    I had hoped to visit this bakery but the initial enthusiasm on the baker's part soon gave way to reticence and my visit was cancelled. But not before I had begun to form a picture of the complex relationship that unites, and often divides, those involved in the seemingly simple world of bread-making for restaurants.

    我曾希望参观面包店，但是最初对面包师那部分的热忱不再，我的行程取消了。但是，那时我已经开始理清为餐厅烘焙面包、那看似简单的世界里，时而联合，时而分离的人们的复杂关系。

    The nub of it is the difficult, often dysfunctional, relationship between baker, pastry chef and chef. To prosper, restaurants need harmony between the last two but often that is not easy: the chefs view pastry chefs as essential but with a tendency to be prima donnas. Pastry chefs often consider chefs as overbearing, bordering on “control freaks”, as one of them curtly put it.

    关键是面包师、点心师和厨师之间难以处理、时而失调的关系。为了生意兴隆，餐厅需要后两者关系和谐，但往往不是那么容易：厨师认为点心师不可或缺，但是觉得他们爱慕虚荣。点心师常常认为厨师傲慢专横，一位点心师简称他们为“控制狂”。

    Surprisingly, bakers and pastry chefs don't mix either. One restaurateur who has had first-hand experience of both described this relationship as “invariably like oil and water”. This is perhaps difficult to comprehend because their essential tools and ingredients are so similar. But pastry chefs, and particularly classically trained French p?tissiers, tend to think of themselves as the stars of the show and bakers as mere journeymen.

    奇怪的是，面包师和点心师能和谐相处。一位拥有两者直接经验的餐厅老板把这种关系描述为“如同油和水永不变更”。或许这难以理解，因为他们的基本工具和配料如此相似。但是，点心师，特别是受过正统训练的法国点心师，会觉得自己是演出的主角，面包师仅仅是技工而已。

    There is also a significant difference in their sense of involvement. Pastry chefs have to be part of a team while the appeal of a baker's life is that once you are prepared for the antisocial hours that the profession demands your independence is guaranteed.

    他们的参与意识也很不一样。点心师必须是团队的一份子，而面包师这一职业的魅力在于，当职业需求一些非社交时间时，他可以相对独立些。

    Yet despite all these challenges there is no doubt that many more chefs would like to bake their own bread. Chefs who have just opened their own restaurant frequently admit that they are initially buying their bread in but claim that as soon as their business has settled down they intend to bake their own.

    然而，虽然面临这些挑战，毫无疑问，更多厨师愿意自己烘焙面包。刚开始经营自己餐厅的厨师常常承认开始的时候，买入面包，但是宣称一旦生意稍有起色，他们倾向于自己烘焙面包。

    This usually does not happen, however. As a result, over the past decade a number of excellent bakeries have opened around London to supply restaurants with their daily bread. They include Bagatelle, Clarke's, Exeter Street Bakery, Gail Force, Millers, St John, Paul and Flourpower. Some supply both retail and wholesale; others just supply restaurants; some extend their range to include cakes, biscuits and chocolates. 

    然而，这种情况鲜有发生。结果，过去20年，伦敦附近开了许多出色的面包店，为餐厅供应每天的面包。这些面包店有Bagatelle、Clarke's、Exeter Street Bakery、Gail Force、Millers、St John、Paul 和Flourpower。有些既批发又零售；有些仅为餐厅供应面包；有些拓展业务，制作蛋糕、饼干和巧克力等。

    What these companies also have in common are unglamorous surroundings. The bakeries are invariably located in purpose-built industrial units with access to public transport for their staff and access into the centre of London for their van drivers. A significant factor in bread-making is the ambient temperature and what is crucial is proximity between the final point of production and the area in which the bread is loaded into the van. Excess dampness and heat are the enemies.

    这些面包店的共同点是周边环境很单调。面包店总是位于特别建造的工业单位，便于员工搭乘公共交通和货车司机运货到伦敦市中心。烘焙面包的一个重要因素就是周围的温度，面包制成的地点和把面包装入货车的距离是关键。烘焙面包忌讳潮湿和高温。

    To discover the other secrets behind baking the best bread I set out late one morning for an industrial unit next to an Underground line and a busy arterial road. The front door was difficult to spot because of the thick plastic flaps surrounding it in order to maintain a constant temperature.

    为了发现烘焙最美味面包的其他秘诀，临近正午的时候，我启程前往毗邻地铁和忙碌公路干线的一个工业单位。很难发现它的前门，因为为了保温，前门已被厚厚的塑料盖子围起来。

    Once inside, I was handed a white hat and coat by a friendly Frenchman dressed in white from head to toe and told to fill in a visitors' medical questionnaire in which I had to declare whether I was carrying typhoid or paratyphoid, or was suffering from skin rashes, boils or discharges. The storage area was piled high with staples such as British and French flour, yeast, salt and tubs of the ingredients required for the more fashionable breads such as walnuts, raisins and buttermilk as well as virgin olive oil for Italian ciabatta and focaccia.

    进入以后，一位友好的法国人马上递给我一顶白色的帽子和一件白色的大衣，这位法国人从头到脚一身白衣，他让我填写一份访客医疗问卷，在问卷中我必须说明我是否带有伤寒、副伤寒，或是否患有皮疹、皮肤烫伤或皮肤溃疡。储藏区高高堆放着材料，例如：英国和法国面粉、酵粉、盐，和一桶桶烘焙时下流行面包所需的原料，如核桃、葡萄干、脱脂乳，还有烘焙意大利ciabatta（查巴塔）和focaccia（佛卡夏）所需的初榨橄榄油。

    As I emerged into the main baking area I began to appreciate why these artisanal bakeries are such an integral part of restaurant life. Here, 11 bakers were hard at work in an area the size of a football pitch, bigger than any kitchen I have seen outside a large hotel or a cruise ship.

    进入主要的烘焙区域，我开始意识到，为何这些传统手工作坊面包店是餐厅不可或缺的一部分。11位面包师在一个足球场大小的厨房里努力工作，这个厨房比我在大型酒店或邮轮外见过的任何厨房都大。

    The three mixers – 300kg, 200kg and 100kg models – looked even more imposing now they had finished for the day. The Kosovan head baker busily shaped, divided and rolled the loaves on a long mixing table. From there everything passed to a vast machine at the back, probably 20 metres wide and 6 metres high, far bigger than any set of commercial kitchen ovens. This enclosed the proover, which allows the shaped loaves to rise gently before going into the ovens on either side. From there the bread went next door to be packed.

    为当天准备的三个分别为300公斤、200公斤和100公斤的搅拌器模型，现在看起来更加壮观。Kosovan的首席面包师在搅拌桌上忙着定型、切割和滚动长条面包。所有面包将被传送到后面的一架大型机器，这架机器也许有20米宽，6米高，远远大于任何商用的厨房烤箱。校验装置附在烤箱上，让成型的长条面包轻轻地上升到两边的烤箱里。接着，面包就会被运送到隔壁包装。

    As we walked around, the baker left me in no doubt as to why he was happy to be out of restaurants. “It's war out there between the different chefs,” he claimed. But what he was most happy about at the moment was that he had just finished training someone who had started as a kitchen porter to become a baker. He feared, however, that it would not be too long before the young man headed back to his native Uzbekistan to open his own bakery.

    我们四周逛逛时，面包师让我清楚明白，为何他如此乐意不在餐厅工作。他说：“在那里，不同的厨师之间有争执。”但是，他现在最开心的是他刚培训完一位小伙子，这位小伙子已开始担任厨房杂工，将会成为面包师。可是，他担心这位年轻的小伙子不久将回到自己的祖国乌兹别克斯坦开自己的面包房。

    Bread-making may be relatively straightforward but the process of getting the best bread to your restaurant table is anything but.

    相对而言，烘焙面包也许轻而易举，但是，把最好的面包呈到你餐厅的过程却绝非易事。