The Spence Bakery

I love this bakery! They make an almond friande to die for and all their cakes and pastries are just amazing. Great sour dough bread. I particularly like their rye and sunflower seed loaf. Egg, bacon and cress rolls are a great treat too 🙂

Love this bakery - I always need to remember to go on a Sunday as they are currently closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. My favourite is the white sourdough, my bread consumption has risen exponentially since I've moved to the neighbourhood! The £5 card minimum others have mentioned has never been a problem for me as I rarely am able to resist buying some pastries, or dessert. Plus we should count ourselves lucky that the large beautiful artisan loaves are under £5! The almond croissants are to die for, especially if you manage to get them fresh and warm first thing in the morning. The raspberry frangipan tart is another favourite, and they do this crumbly apple pie/cake thing that is super delicious (as you can tell I have a sweet tooth :P). Sandwiches are excellent as well. Oh, and the english muffins. And the bagels! You have to get there early at the weekend - most stuff is already gone by 2pm! The person who mentioned closing up at 4:45 when they are meant to be open by 6 - it is very rare that they have enough stock left over to stay open till 6pm, which is the sign of a great bakery!

I love having a good bakery locally, it has become a cherished weekend ritual to go out in the morning and buy freshly baked bread for breakfast. Their bagels are a firm favourite, the sourdough is good, the focaccia is probably terribly unhealthy but delicious (I start salivating involuntarily every time I see it). Staff are always very pleasant and friendly.

Absolutely outstanding! They went above and beyond to deliver gorgeous bagels and breads to my son and his wife on their first Anniversary as I am over 100 miles away. Joanna the manager was so lovely and even bought them a card. I can’t praise Spence highly enough ,just sometimes you need more stars. Thank you.

I am all for supporting independent shops on the high street but having tried this place twice, I am always feeling underwhelmed as I walk out. I’ll echo previous reviewers, the staff is rather rude whenever your buys are under £5, they will push you to buy more items even if you’re willing to settle for £5 for a basket worth say £4.5. Now the important bit: the products aren’t that good, or rather not that well made. The croissants are a total let down, you can’t feel an ounce a butter in them, they feel so dry and almost stale. It pains me to say the bakery bit from Sainsbury’s next door offers a better experience.

The finest bakers. We’re lucky to have them on our doorstep. The Spence team work so hard to provide the finest range of bread, pastries and delicious biscuits. A baker whose stock is guaranteed deplete by mid afternoon is the sign of a great local supplier- my regular 8am Saturday visit is always busy. Spence is now very much part of the great Fortess Food Firmament.

Home of the BEST and I mean best sausage roll in town. The pastry is just divine. The filled bagels are also delicious. It is slightly over priced but i actually think it’s worth it.

Best bread around. I'm not afraid to say that it's 10 times better than Gail's. I love the baguettes here and the pumpkin seed loaf. The pain au chocolat used to be amazing, now it's just OK. Please bring back the old recipe!

Great little bakery close to my house. There isn't any seating nor a massive selection of cakes or cookies but there is a good range of freshly baked breads. I would say this is somewhere you should go out of your way to go to buy if your in the area close to Tufnell Park station defiantly worth nipping in for a cookie on the go.

This place is pretty new, and really great. I popped in to buy some posh bread (to go with ratatouille) and chose a loaf of rye bread. My husband told me that it was the nicest rye bread he has ever tasted...and he is a huge fan of good bread! It isn't particularly cheap, but I think it was totally worth it for bread that is that delicious. I'm sure we'll head back to try more of their bread-y treats.

The French 100% dark sourdough rye is brilliant, and lasts for ages wsithout going hard. The best I've had in North London, and I go around trying to find good sourdough 100% rye. Drawback: twice now I've been to the bakery and they haven't had that bread in stock. Once it was late afternoon and I assumed they had run out. Fair enough. This morning (9.00 a.m.) I rang up to check -- it's a long way from my house to get there, but for the bread it's worth it -- and they said very courteously that they didn't have it, and might not have it tomorrow, it was a question of the supply of flour to the bakery.. Like Jerome, I feel "they should have better stock control" . It may be that their supplier has terrible stock contro, but.....in any case, if you want this amazing 100% rye bread, ring before you go to check there is some....... I hope I'll be luckier next time....

Great bakery with a very good selection of breads and pastries. Their croissants are pretty good, and I love the marbled brioche. Also, they use leftover pastries and brioche to make a brioche-and-butter pudding with custard cream that is absolutely heavenly. It is not cheap, but relative to other bakeries in London with similar quality of bread it's pretty good value for money - definitely cheaper than Pain Quotidien or Pauls.

I want to like it I really do. I was so excited when it opened as it completed the butcher/fishmonger/grocer square on fortress road, but it's just not very good. The bread is often stale and some of it just isn't nice. the cakes are overpriced and again often stale- I am not sure how often the bake (I don;t think they bake on site). The staff are students who basically act like they are doing you a favour, which is irksome when a loaf of bread can set you back close to a fiver. The other thing is that the bread is displayed on open shelves, which look s very nice but more than once I've seen small children picking up and playing with the bread and putting it back which isn't terribly hygienic.

Decent baked goods, friendly &helpful staff but terrible stock control very frequently they are closed mid day because they're all sold out, or the entire shop is empty of baked goods when you arrive ( frustrating when you've made a journey for something ) it happens more than it should ( I don't expect it's customers Regularly getting super hungry unexpectedly there are clear logical reasons/patterns)