In Dolgellau, a bakery queue draws hikers and locals to Eldon Square

Outside DD’s Bakery and Sandwich Bar in Eldon Square, Dolgellau, hikers, tourists, cyclists and local people stand in the same line. Writer Mark Williams saw it on a recent visit, which the Daily Post published on 24 October.

A town many visitors drive past

Dolgellau is easy to miss. According to the Daily Post piece, plenty of tourists skip it, either heading for the coastal resort of Barmouth or going north to climb Yr Wyddfa. The article portrays a dark stone market town with quaint squares, independent cafes and many walking trails.

Williams strolled through some of the narrow streets and arrived in Eldon Square, where the queue caught his eye. The glass display was packed with pasties, pies, quiches and sandwiches made to order. The business belongs to a husband-and-wife team, Dan and Dot Kuczynski.

It was a busy lunchtime, with customers filing in at a steady pace. While Williams was still making up his mind, a baker was topping up the shelves with bread.

Inside the shop, the display went beyond bread and pasties. Williams noted cheesecakes with mirror glazes, buns made for tearing apart and plenty of chocolate treats. He also wrote that the homemade baking showed pride in its making, a view that is his own impression of the place.

The Daily Post piece describes the Kuczynskis’ shop as a treasure trove of sweet and savoury baked goods. The writer joined the same line as the other customers, outside the door, before going in to choose.

What is on the shelves

The writer listed a wide range behind the counter:

• Bread: focaccias, baguettes, and seeded, grain or plain loaves.
• Savouries: pork pies, turnovers and meat quiches.
• Sweet things: rocky road, apple strudel and pink doughnuts.
• Salad bar: coronation chicken, Mexican chorizo and sweet chili chicken as fillings.
• Welsh bakes: a long row of bara brith loaves, and hundreds of Welsh cakes set beside them.

The taste test

Williams settled on a beef and stilton pasty. It was D-shaped, crimped along the edge and made with short crust pastry, holding blue cheese, diced beef, swede and potato.

He picked a second pasty, chicken and chorizo, because someone waiting in the queue had recommended it.

For something sweet he tried a triple chocolate cake with white buttercream, plus a giant chocolate chip cookie that cost £2.

The beef and stilton pasty finished with a golden-brown surface, and Williams described the filling as tangy, molten blue cheese around tender chunks of beef, with thin layers of swede and potato running through it. He called it a winter warmer, according to the Daily Post account.

The chicken and chorizo version had a deeper yellow crust and was filled with diced chicken. In his telling, the Spanish sausage brought a touch of warm spice. He admitted it is not a classic pie filling.

The chocolate cake, in his words, was moist and fudgy with a rich crumb but a light texture, and he singled out the sweet buttercream. The cookie, which he compared in size to a frisbee, was packed with chewy chocolate chips.

Worth staying on in town

Dolgellau counts over two hundred listed buildings, among them slate cottages, historic chapels and old mills tied to the wool trade. Once he had finished eating, Williams found both locals and tourists out in the town, with healthy footfall around the shops.

His walk took in a crafts market, a vintage shop selling vinyl and an antique shop, all in stone buildings.

Photo: Julian Herzog (Website) / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0