Artisan Finds in Exeter

Artisan food is the bomb.

When it’s done right, artisan food and coffee have the power to revolutionise your taste buds and show you a whole new way of eating. And because you’re supporting independent businesses, you’ll leave with a feeling of ‘money-well-spent’, too. It’s a win-win, basically.

Exeter is choc-a-bloc with fantastic companies, so here’s an attractive smattering of the ones we love most.

 

Exploding Bakery

With probably the most appropriate name in Exeter town centre, this previously humble establishment has exploded onto the foodie scene, serving exquisite artisan coffee and the sexiest traybakes right into the faces of the baking big-shots.

Over the past seven years, The Exploding Bakery team have grown from *literally* nada to building an impressive Traybake Empire. On top of that, their baristas are widely considered the best in town, knocking out a constantly changing selection of artisan coffees from local and national roasters.

If fermented goodies are your thing, the homemade kimchee and kombucha are made on site and, in our opinion, are second to none!

Their cakes are sold nationally in some of the best cafes, restaurants and shops, and the cafe just gets more and more popular as the rep spreads further afield; The Exploding Bakery shows no signs of slowing down. We were lucky enough to work with the awesome bunch that run this establishment – you can check out their website to see what we did!

 

Hillside Foods

We love a bit of experimentation now and then. But according to big-shot judges at the national Great Taste Awards, Hillside Foods (one of our clients) has officially ‘nailed it’. And when you’ve got a good thing going, you roll with it.

Hillside Foods has gone from strength to strength creating delicious and imaginative handmade accompaniments for cheese. From chutney and fruit cheeses to sauces and biscuits, there’s no stopping the Hillside team.

The Hillside philosophy is all about preserving the oldest (and best) techniques to make honest, exciting food. Their product development services are employed by companies such as Harrods and Selfridges – if you want a speciality product making with the best ingredients and a unique taste and character to write home about – these are the guys to go to!

 

Roastworks

Scientific communities are increasingly coming towards a revolutionary breakthrough: the realisation that artisan coffee really does make the world go round.

Roastworks Coffee Co. source and hand roast coffee beans to produce the highest quality speciality coffees. They are distributed to supermarkets and independent shops, sold online and served in cafes by baristas who know their shit.

Artisan foods are famously sustainable, and our client Roastworks is no exception. Ecology and care for the farmers who grow the beans are central to their philosophy, and so your coffee is guilt free too.

Roastworks know how important growing region, variety and processing methods are in creating the best aromas and tastes, so they use all the tricks in the book to the perfect roasts. Unrivalled passion, experience and the coolest drum roaster in the world (from 1958), all contribute some of the best coffee we have tasted. Working with these guys to develop their website was indeed a caffeine-fuelled pleasure!

 

The House of Hope and Mercy in the Jungle

One staggeringly cool name + all the expertise known to man = Devon’s best tea merchants by a country mile.

This atelier uses ethically-sourced whole leaves in their mission to craft the finest collection of tea blends in the South West, if not Britain itself. There’s no doubt that House of Hope and Mercy is up there dwelling in the stratosphere with our nation’s sky-rocketingly high tea standards.

With a firm belief in curiosity, defying normality and damn good design, the teas that come out of House of Hope and Mercy are not only the best versions of Earl Grey, Green, English Breakfast, and many many others, but each blend is truly and utterly unique.

For the full experience, settle down with a Vonnegut classic and some sweet jazz tones drifting from the record player, before admiring the tea-of-all-teas which sit before you.

 

Hops and Crafts

Craft Ale? Real Ale? Hops and Crafts aren’t one to wage war over semantics. All we know is they stock over 200 kinds of stonkingly good beers. Over 200!

After noticing a dismal selection of beers in Exeter a few years ago, Chris Harper started Hops and Crafts with a mission to save the people of this town from their own dire taste in alcoholic beverages. A treasure trove with plenty of hidden gems, the shop has offerings from all over the world, including Belgium, USA, all over Scandinavia, and of course, good old Blighty.

Hops and Crafts have you covered when it comes to incredible and unusual flavours, as well as presenting the golden opportunity to impress your mates with your insane knowledge of world beers. Omnipollo Selassie? Sweden. Easy.


And that’s that!

There are, of course, a whole host of other incredible food producers and coffee shops in Exeter and beyond, with so many new and exciting food and drink offerings that you could forget you were in the land of tasteless food itself. Perhaps a revolution is on the horizon? Our tastebuds sure hope so.