An east London bakery – as famous for its long-fermented breads as the work it does with at-risk young people – has been targeted by vandals accusing it of destroying their local community.
Ashley Walters, Jamie Oliver and Yotam Ottolenghi are among fans of the Dusty Knuckle’s menu, from its £11.50, two-hander, pilpelchuma celeriac sandwich to its £7.60 egg, pickled green chilli and cheese focaccia.
But last week, the Dusty Knuckle Haringey was targeted with graffiti accusing it of ruining the area: “GENTRIFRYERS-EW-SHIT BREAD”, it read.
Max Tobias, who founded the bakery with Rebecca Oliver and Daisy Terry, was devastated when he saw the graffiti. “It really upset me,” he said. “It was so demotivating when our core drive is to help local, unqualified young people in need of a second chance.”
Tobias has since mulled the message over. “I’ve decided that we can cope with the ‘shit bread’ bit because we can’t please everyone. But the ‘gentrifiers’ is a bit more complicated,” he said.
“Being held responsible for housing prices feels like a heavy cross to bear, but there’s no getting away from it: we started a sourdough bakery in Hackney at a time when it was hard to come by a flat white there – and now the community has transformed and local people are being priced out.
“We’re in an impossible situation when it comes to the ‘gentrification’ accusation,” Tobias added. “What do we do as a socially driven organisation trying to scale and help local, young people find work? We need to find areas to open our bakeries where there are underrepresented groups but also aspiring professionals who want to buy our croissants.”
Jamie Oliver also started his now-closed, not-for-profit restaurant and chef-training programme, Fifteen, to help vulnerable young people.
He said: “Max and the dedicated team at Dusty Knuckle are creating real social change in their local area by harnessing the transformative power of food and hands-on skills. They offer young locals a second chance to turn their lives around.
“I recently filmed there for my up-and-coming documentary on dyslexia, it was amazing. Some team members said they learned more in three months at Dusty Knuckle than during their entire school career, gaining a sense of achievement and accomplishment.
“Investing in people is also investing in the community. Gentrification or rehabilitation? It’s a fine line. You want to help people in an area but selling quality food requires growing an audience willing to pay for it.
“I chose Old Street for Fifteen because it was cheap rent, it’s not now. Moro restaurant revitalised a rough Exmouth Market, which is now bustling and super cool. This ebb and flow has always been part of London as it’s continued to grow in size and population.”
Billy was introduced to the Dusty Knuckle’s trainee scheme when he came out of prison after a 12-year sentence for murder.
“Nowhere else would give me a job when I came out of prison but the Dusty Knuckle gave me a chance to shine,” he said.
“I was really confused when I heard about the graffiti,” he added. “It has to have been done by somebody who has no idea what the Dusty Knuckle actually believes in and stands for because the Dusty Knuckle has changed more lives and done more for a disadvantaged community, whether a person’s white, black or Muslim, than the actual community itself.
“I know so many gang members who have gone on to change their lives after working at the Dusty Knuckle programme because it gave them a legit way to earn a living.”
Paul Burnham, the secretary of the Haringey Defend Council Housing group, said responsibility for gentrification lies with local and central government, not individual businesses.
“Yes, £12 sandwiches are drivers of gentrification but the things that really matter are high house prices and high market rents,” he said. “If local people had protected, affordable housing, it wouldn’t matter how much a local croissant cost.
“This government’s goal of building 1.5m new homes doesn’t include a target for a single new affordable new home. That means the policy will inflate property prices in local areas and drive out the ordinary people who call those areas home.”
The Dusty Knuckle has a string of well-known supporters, including the pastry chef and activist Ravneet Gill and the singer-songwriter Jessie Ware. The two bakeries, cafe and baking school employ 120 local people, with a focus on at-risk, young people who have been involved with the justice system, are care leavers or asylum seekers.
Tobias co-founded the Dusty Knuckle after spending years working in schools, charities and prisons. “I realised I had nothing to offer these young people who were heading towards a life of crime, or were already in one, other than words,” he said.
“I wanted to show them that they could be enterprising, financially self-sustaining and learn skills. I realised that having a buzzing, entrepreneurial, exciting, busy commercial business environment that they could be part of, would be a much more profound way of displaying those values and putting our money where our mouth is, than in a charity.”
The graffiti has made Tobias think again about locations of future bakeries. But, he said: “We’d worry a bit about a London where ‘fancy bakeries’ can’t open next to Turkish grocers. How would we get variety and diversity into neighbourhoods then?
“Also, how often are ‘poor communities’ included in the public conversation about what their housing and local business landscape looks like?” he asked. “We suspect a lot of the local businesses selling very cheap food aren’t doing so to ‘protect the poor’.”