It's a late Monday afternoon when I reach Caroline Styne on the phone. Above the sound of a busy dining room—the clinking of glasses, the chatter of diners—she sounds small when she answers the call. But Styne may have had a bigger impact on the wine Angelenos have been drinking than any other sommelier in town. Now, along with her partner, chef Suzanne Goin and their longtime bread baker Nathan Dakdouk, Styne is setting her sights on another product that's a result of careful fermentation: bread. Here, we talk with the award-winning restaurateur about how she fell in love with dough.
You’ve operated restaurants your whole career. Why did you and Suzanne want to start a wholesale bakery business?
Years back, when we only had A.O.C. and Lucques, we’d been using bread from another company. We started getting the itch to do something on our own. I’ve always had a fantasy of baking bread, I love the whole process. We actually had a host at the restaurant at the time who was sort of a farmers’ market groupie. He said, ‘Can I bake bread for you?’ and we said ‘yes,’ and we loved it. We loved it so much we started using it for A.O.C. and Lucques. But then, because he was a baker he developed carpal tunnel, and I think he didn’t want to get up early in the morning anymore.
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