Our story
We’re a small bakery and eatery located in Refshaleøen in Copenhagen. In the summer of 2018 we opened with the dream of being a space that brought people together. It all began when our oven was funded by a kickstarter campaign, and lots of friends, supporters and helping hands made this possible.
For five years now we have worked to provide the best food and bread we know how to make and bake.
The farmers and producers behind lille
Good food can only come from good ingredients. To us,
good means grown / raised responsibly for planet and people.
It means fair and in harmony with the soil and all it’s life.
We solely work with local farmers and fishermen who share these views, and who care about the why and how.
When you visit their farms, you experience a live orchestra of bees, insects, birds and wildlife. The plants are vigorous, tall and colorful and there are many different varieties, old and new.
Native species are intermingled and natural weeds fulfill their destiny in the margins. No bare soil here. Life is present and lively.
And then there are real families living there, working the fields.
True biodiversity create the healthiest, most tasty carrots.
It’s nothing like visiting a vast monoculture-field of a single crop. You go there, it’s dead silent. Tractor sounds and crusty clay.
Our farmers do not till the soil, they do not spray chemicals or artificial fertilizers - they work to preserve the natural balance, and to intervene as little as possible. Sowing seeds, caring for the soil-life and plants and harvesting them when it’s time.
We think this is where food should come from.
When it comes to animals, it’s our opinion that meat and dairy can be produced and consumed ethically. We work with a select few, who truly allow their animals the best, most natural life.
It can be a daunting job, as the laws and regulations in place always favor the industrial large scale indoor productions.
These are hard-working, very passionate people who fight to change the system, and are dedicated to making meat and dairy production a natural and beautiful profession.
We are proud to work with all of them.
Community
There is a beautiful community around the bakery without which we wouldn’t really exist. We are eternally grateful and humbled by that and by everyone who keeps coming by.
It’s the island’s regulars, the art students who come for lunch, the sailors and fixer-uppers over at the harbour, the small businesses, the offices, the milk lady, the rye bread man, the blacksmith crew, the travellers from the other side of the world, and from the other side of town.
The thousands of breakfasts shared, talks had and greetings given make all of our days brighter.
Brown Flour
A mysterious white powder to many. Even to us. It’s amazing what this substance can turn into.
But flour should probably be more brown and dynamic.
When flour is white as chalk and homogenous, it contains less of the actual grain.
This concentrates the gluten and strength, creating taller loaves, but it also means less nutrition and fiber, and more processing and wastage.
Our wheat farmers cycle this nutritious byproduct into compost for the coming crops.
There are endless varieties of wheat. Some are ancient, some are from last harvest. They all have unique properties, and behave, taste and feel different to work with. We try and work with the flours that our friends the millers are excited about.
Wheat is a heavily industrialized crop, and are often grown in monocultures, where every single plant is a genetically identical clone. These fields are often kept alive by chemical input and heavy mechanical intervention.
To introduce more diversity and life to grain-growing, our farmers sow groups of varieties that compliment each other, and they even cultivate population-wheats, which are cross-bred so that every single seed has it’s own DNA. This is to cultivate the seeds of our future, adapted to its current climate, which is changing faster than ever before.
We use flour from Kornby Mølle, Vild Hvede and Brinkholm. They’re all millers who partly grow their own grain and selectively work with local wheat farmers.
Seeds and grains
Often overlooked. They’re so little. But when you bake with them every day in somewhat large quantities, it matters where and how your seeds are farmed.
Ryebread is the most classic Danish phenomenon, but it’s near impossible to find one made from actual Danish ingredients in the city. We now bake a 100% Danish rye, with Danish grown hemp, flax, oats, camelina, and rye grains.
This is the case for all our bakes nowadays, we really want to explore the ingredients and possibilities of cold climate farming, and use strictly Danish produce, all the way down to the little seeds.
Have you heard about Camelina seeds?
It is a 1 mm golden/reddish brown seed that thrives in the cold north, and has long history of cultivation in Europe, but has since been a bit neglected for human consumption.
Camelina is quite nutritious and really high in omega-3, and we think these golden seeds with the oniony flavor are having a comeback!
