It comes up whenever people get curious, and Milo Jones gives a proverbial flex to answer.
“When people ask me why it’s called ‘The Painted Baker,’ I just show them my forearms,” he said. Covered in tattoos, and likening himself to a mad scientist, Jones wants people to have good bread, and feel good about what they eat.
“It’s sugar, spice and everything nice, and every now and again I want to see what the chemical X is,” he said. He’s the former in-house baker at Butcher and Baker and prior to that, Jones called the venerated rustic Algonquin resort Arowhon Pines home. He got his start learning from his dad.
And like father, like son – Jones is carrying on his family’s tradition, but in his own way. While his dad focuses on the sourdough and some panned loaves in the mornings, Jones takes care of all the baguettes and jokes that he is ‘the baguette king in this place’.
Beyond baguettes, Jones, who started out wanting to be an actor, is truly an artist. As the name Painted Baker suggests, the dough is his canvas.
I just like doing weird things and seeing if they work,” he said.
While the sourdough is popular, his scones and focaccia have really taken off. On busy days, the fifty scones he sets out at 9 a.m. are sold out barely an hour later. Jones refers to it as an Irish scone, because it is similar to a soda bread recipe, and he works with it to make layers that maintain a light, flaky quality.
Jones’ focaccia, however, is on another level.
“We’ll play around with flavours and come up with weird ones like Blackberry and Honey, with a little drizzle of a honey-ginger-white-balsamic,” he said.
As a result, Focaccia Fridays are fast becoming Stratford’s hot new trend. Every Friday, Jones partners with Olive Your Favourites to select a different olive oil with which to make a focaccia. One recent creation included a focaccia with cherry tomatoes marinated in red white, red wine reduction, tomato base, roasted garlic, rosemary and a select olive oil.
Another atypical confection that Jones likes to bake is a Portuguese bagel. It’s a recipe he picked up while training in Paris, he shared. It has a little more sugar in it than a Montreal bagel, which allows it to be softer. Rather than poaching it in baking soda and salt, he uses brown sugar and salt. There is no shine or glaze. It is lighter, less dense, and finished with a drizzle of Californian olive oil and sea salt.
“Who has more fun than bakers?” Jones asks.
Want proof? Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday he doles out lip-smackingly sweet Cinnamon Buns; Saturdays are for Croissants, while Sundays see Pain au Chocolate hit the menu, and Wednesdays and Fridays are random pastry special days. The only people to have more fun with that schedule than the baker, are his customers.
Jones’ breads can also be enjoyed at local restaurants. His ciabatta is served at Bluebird. The Little Kitchen and The Boathouse use his bread in their sandwiches.
At Elizabeth he provides orders of six sourdoughs and ‘six of something weird’. For example, on one occasion Jones infused butterfly pea tea in his sourdough. The bread turned deep rich purple, which he mixed with blackberries for a totally unique look as well as taste.
The key ingredient to baking that Jones loves is simplicity. There isn’t a paragraph of ingredients to his baking. It’s just flour, salt, water and yeast.
“It’s simple to understand, but it’s so absolutely chaotic if it gets busy enough,” he said. “I like that every day is both the same and not, because if it storms tonight and cools dramatically tomorrow, then how I mix everything has to be different too.”
That is a challenge he enjoys. What Jones finds most rewarding is hearing his most-treasured compliment.
“When people come in and tell me that they get bugged by their six-year-old kid every day to come in here and get a loaf of bread,” he said. “I like to make wild things, and I’m finally able to do it the way I want to do it. I am the Painted Baker.”
The Painted Baker can be found at 7 York Street, and is open Tuesday through Sunday, 7 a.m. - 4 p.m.
