Sourdough is the star of new cafe opened by pastry chef Gerard Dubois in Hong Kong – it’s in everything from bread to muffins

Sourdough used to be a hard sell in Hong Kong. Now it’s so popular that pastry chef Gerard Dubois has opened a cafe in Wan Chai where it is the star ingredient

At Sour Dough, all the bread and pastries – including croissants, pain au chocolat, Danish pastries, scones and muffins – are made from sourdough

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Pastry chef Gerard Dubois has opened a cafe called Sour Dough, where all the bread and pastries are made from sourdough.

Published: 12:45pm, 24 Mar 2022

Sourdough bread is all the rage in Hong Kong, with more people than ever baking it or buying it, but pastry chef Gerard Dubois can remember a time when no one did.

“I love sourdough, but I never pushed it because the Chinese didn’t understand what I was talking about 30 years ago. Everybody said it was crispy and hard,” he recalls. At the time, he was a pastry chef at the Hilton Hotel in Central, on Hong Kong Island.

The Swiss baker has been baking sourdough bread since 1991 for his bakery La Rose Noire, which distributes baked goods to hotels, restaurants and supermarkets in Hong Kong as well as to 47 countries around the world.

Ten years ago he opened a chain, Passion by Gerard Dubois, which also offers sourdough bread. He has now opened a cafe called Sour Dough in Wan Chai, where all the bread and pastries – including croissants, pain au chocolat, Danish pastries, scones and muffins – are made from sourdough.

“We are one of the first to do sourdough croissants,” he explains ahead of its opening on March 24. “We use 30 per cent sourdough in the dough so the croissant is more crispy, less salty and less sweet, and the pain au chocolat and Danishes too. There’s still butter but it’s more healthy.”

Sandwiches use sourdough bread that is either white, red or dark; there are vegan and vegetarian fillings, as well as pastrami and sauerkraut, and Cubano sandwiches. Salads are all vegan, as is the soup of the day.