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For a Waterford girl – she’s from Tramore – Sarah Richards boldly looked westwards for her education, studying first at the Crawford School of Art, and then embarking on the 12-week course at the Ballymaloe School, in Shanagarry.
The School led to a year working in the kitchen of Ballymaloe House itself, proof of her dynamism, but the bread bug was already summoning her, and she worked then with one of the instigators of the modern bread movement, Declan Ryan, at Arbutus Bakery.
Arbutus. Ballymaloe. Crawford. That’s one hell of an A.B.C. to have on your curriculum. Throw in a later spell with Real Bread maestro Andrew Whitley, and you have the perfect resumé.
Her time in Cork over, she returned to Tramore, and started to produce breads at The Vic Deli: Sarah’s Breads was born.
Today, Sarah’s Breads has become Seagull Bakery, and the thing about the Seagull Bakery in Tramore is that you have got to get there early, or risk disappointment. The Seagull is a smart, corner-turning building on Broad Street, but you don’t need to know the address: just look for the queue of people snaking out the door, all of them dreaming of a loaf of seaweed sourdough, or a Borodinsky rye, or a croissant and a cup of Roasted Brown, to start the day, to get their lives set on course.
Sarah Richards has created a new template for the modern Irish craft baker: from art student, to farmer’s market bakery heroine, to a bricks and mortar bakery and café that is the Toast of Tramore. That’s how you do it.