Its small shop-front is easier to miss than the frequent queues out of its doors and onto Great North Rd, where Tart Bakery has quietly launched a food revolution.
And yet, Tart Bakery recently took out the NZ Herald’s readers’ choice for Best Bakery in Auckland. Ponsonby News spoke to owner Philippa Stephenson to try and unfurl the special ingredient that makes Tart so popular, and its customers such ardent supporters. It turns out that she’s a force of nature with something much more important than baked goods on her mind, and a clever and entirely pragmatic idea of how to save the world.
Mother to five children, one of whom brought home a vegan girlfriend, ultimately convincing Mum and the rest of the kids to follow suit, Philippa started Tart with the environment in mind.
Tart Bakery itself went 100 percent vegan on World Vegan Day last November, and no one’s complaining. The idea is to surreptitiously change the way we eat – or what we eat – thereby forcing the issue with meat and milk producers. And the only way to get that plan rolling is to have a bakery full of familiar and delicious treats that play on the comfort factor.
The first time you have a gander at the shelves at Tart you’re in for a big surprise. All the traditional bakery food fare is there: scrumptious donuts, melt-in-mouth croissants, spectacular pizza slices, a dedicated pie cabinet, and more. The hard thing to get your head around is that it’s all vegan, because you’d hardly notice.
“My aim is to not frighten the horses,” says Philippa. “We’re trying not to make it culturally odd. If people can write-off veganism then that will give them a reason not to look at their food, but if you make it culturally acceptable… that’s the aim of the game. So we go for making it accessible and yummy.
“If you can be a vegan and respect animals and the planet but still have a custard square or a mince and cheese pie, or a donut, or a piece of fudge cake, then it doesn’t take much effort for you the customer to move over. It tastes great, it looks great, it’s cheap, it’s equivalent to any bakery you’ll find out there; it’s just better.”
A percentage of Tart Bakery’s food includes ‘fake’ meat – popular in Taiwanese Buddhist food – and while some turn their noses up at having anything that looks or tastes like dead animal, Philippa says that it’s all about that same comfort factor: great for those in transition from animal-based diets, a great way to let kids ‘fit in’ at school.
“The prejudice I face is that of people sticking their heads in and going ‘where’s the meat?’ I say, ‘you just take it and if it’s shit, don’t pay’. And every single time they come back and pay. It wouldn’t be in my interests to make shit food. That would be dumb. I know it’s good, I choose the ingredients and know the care with which it’s produced.”
With proceeds churned back into environmental and animal education charities, Tart Bakeries is a mission, not simply a business, and Philippa sees it as the start of a whole new thing, raving about her dedicated staff and the vegan community who support the venture.
• Gary Steel is an Auckland-based journalist who runs online vegetarian resource www.doctorfeelgood.co.nz He can be contacted via beautmusic@gmail.com
TART BAKERY, 555 Great North Road, T: 09 376 5535, www.facebook.com/Tart-Bakery-406359492757186/?hc_ref=SEARCH&fref=nf