J F Ayre

I telephoned today asking if they could do me a birthday cake. The girl who picked up the phone after about 8 rings answered all my questions but I could hear in her voice that she was not particularly interested in talking and was cold on the phone although she was informative and overall pleasant.
I have bought cakes from the bakery before and I know they used to do good cakes but if this was me phoning them out of a directory, I would not visit the shop as it looked as if the girl who answered the phone wasn’t bothered whether or not I ended up buying a cake from the shop.

A few nice pastries, ok service, less friendly than years ago when my mum used to get cream cakes for our birthdays. London has changed… and this bakery along with it.

When I first moved to Nunhead two years ago I found myself walking home down Evelina Road. It was 10am and I’d not really paid any attention to the shops on the street. However, when I passed by J F Ayres and saw all of the colourful and fresh looking produce I did a double take and swiftly turned around the enter the store.
The food is amazing, everything you should expect from a local bakery. Great sweet treats and also staples like bread. The only downside is that some of the items are a tiny bit expensive for my northern mind to comprehend. Saying that, it’s still tempting to declare that you want to try one of everything!
I would recommend paying a visit and coming early in the day — I once dragged my partner along near the closing time promising such a foodporn experience to find most of the better things were sold out — a sign of how popular it really is!

great local bakery in nunhead, pleasant service and masses of choice. get there early! they do those cronut things too… pretty special!
price compared to equivalents in other zone 2 areas is really reasonable.
love their work.

The next on the list of the cronut was Ayres the Bakers down in Peckham which was brought to my attention by the lovely Teresa C so I dragged myself out of bed at 6am this morning for a quick ride down to the bakery.
As with all good bakeries, there are more items on offer than you can eat — that being said it’s tempting to give it a go and stuff everything down your gullet. I was in luck as they were quite literally just putting the finishing touches on them and the delightful lady at the counter ducked into the back and packed four of them into a box for me. The cronuts are doughnut shaped with clearly defined flaky layers of pastry and dusted with a deliciously unhealthy amount of powdered sugar and stuffed with a very generous amount of custard.
The cronut was light and fluffy as all good cronuts should be and the custard fresh with hints of vanilla. And it’s massive, easily the biggest cronut in London that I’ve tried so far. Despite the blanket of powdered sugar, it wasn’t too sweet which means it makes a perfect breakfast pastry — so I proceeded to demolish one myself for brekkers.
Oh, and at £1.30 a cronut, these are the new best value ones on the crawl.

Fantastic bakery, and it feels like stepping back in time a bit.
Brown tiled floors, glass counters a plenty, all filled with freshly-​made home-​made breads, cakes, pastries, biscuits etc.
Calling it ‘the best bakery in London’ is going a bit far as there are many more out there that do extravagant and amazing things with flour, water and yeast, but Ayres the bakers has an eerie homely feel about it that drums up images of seeing your mother or grandmother rolling out dough and home baking for the family.
Is a nightmare parking outside on the weekends as people come from far and wide, but it’s definitely worth the bother.

This is without a doubt the best bakery in London. You can buy cakes, pastries, breads and cookies, and they also provide catering services for weddings, funerals, Christenings etc. The quality is impeccable and the range is vast. Every time I pass this shop I cannot help but stop by — the temptation is just toooooo much! I recommend their homemade yum yums, cupcakes and carrot cake. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.

A good bakery, made an order and on collection it looked better than what we chose in the picture. Only set back was it was full of cream. too much. Had i known i would have specified ‘easy on the cream’. So confirm exactly whats going to be inside. Otherwise we were happy with our cake.

A fantastic bakery in Nunhead Lane, with lots of speciality breads (their newest one is pumpkin) and rolls. There is a great variety of cakes, both large and individual, ranging from plain sponges and carrot cake through to mouthwatering cream cakes and gateaux. The hot counter has good sausage rolls and steak bakes, and also does soup and filled sandwiches. At lunchtimes the queues can be very long but service is generally as quick as is possible and the staff are courteous.