Four filled breads sit on the savoury counter at $10 each: a sausage scroll, a creamy chicken bread, a ham and cheese bread, and a cheese and spring onion potato bread. They are the least fussy thing we make. For anyone feeding six to sixteen people in a meeting room they are also the most useful. Artisan breads in Christchurch usually arrive as a loaf you still have to do something with. These arrive finished.
What a filled bread actually solves
A boardroom lunch fails on logistics long before it fails on flavour. Platters need serving spoons. Sandwiches need someone to cut them. Anything hot needs a kitchen you do not have. A filled bread is one item, one hand, no plate, no cutlery, no carving. Soft crust, a bit of pull in the crumb, and the filling stays put until you bite it. Nobody has to work out what counts as a polite amount to take, because the portion is the object. Put a tray in the middle of the table, keep talking, let people reach.
Everything on the savoury range is made in our own kitchen, never bought in, and made the way the rest of the patisserie is made: no pre-mixes, ingredients chosen for taste and not for cost. Your guests notice that without being told.
The rest of the counter, and what pairs with what
Beside the filled breads sits the Stuffed Sfiha, a Lebanese-Brazilian filled pastry. Then the three quiches: Lorraine, mushroom and caramelised onion. The Brazilian cheese scone, better known as pao de queijo, is built on cassava instead of wheat, and it comes to the table warm with hand-whipped butter and guava jam. Pull one apart and it stretches slightly before it gives. A Croque Monsieur is made to order in about ten minutes, along with the rest of the made-to-order savouries.
A sensible spread for a working lunch runs one filled bread and one quiche a head, with cheese scones in the middle to share. Sweet expected too? Cake slice boxes come in sets of fifteen, and petit four trays hold fifteen pieces. The full range sits on our menu, and the dessert catering boxes page covers quantities.
Guests who avoid gluten
All three quiches and the cheese scone are made with no added gluten, and they sit in our No Added Gluten Cakes and Desserts collection. Two honest caveats. New Zealand labelling rules mean we can only state that we have not added gluten-containing ingredients, never make a claim about the finished item. And our kitchen is small and without exclusive production areas for all of our different recipes, so traces may occur and nothing we make is guaranteed safe for severe coeliac disease. Say that to your guest and let them decide.
Fresh, or frozen for heating on site
Savouries can be supplied fresh or frozen for heating in your own kitchen. That changes what an all-day event or an offsite can do. Frozen puts the timing in your hands instead of building the agenda around a collection window, and the bread comes out steaming at the moment you want it, not an hour early and going leathery on a bench.
Taste it before you commit
Bring the colleague who signs off the spend and eat lunch here first. Two of you can work through four items between you for the price of two mains elsewhere in town, tearing each one in half across the table and passing the better half back. You will know exactly what you are putting in front of a client. Our tables move and seat groups of four to eight, and the kitchen is open-plan, so there is work to watch while you eat. Better twenty minutes than a phone call.
Holding a tray for a Tuesday meeting
Walk-in counter items need no notice. Allow about ten minutes for anything made to order. Want a set quantity held for a meeting? Order online on the standard two-day lead time and pick your slot at checkout, where the date picker only offers dates the kitchen can meet. Collection only, from our patisserie inside The Welder at 20-26 Welles Street, Christchurch Central, one block south of the Bus Interchange. Open 10am to 9pm Tuesday to Saturday.
