Two days, one fire
The oven never fully cools. We start tomorrow's bread in the last of tonight's heat.
The dough is mixed the night before and left to rise slow and cold. It goes into the hearth after service, when the fire is spent and the stone is holding a deep, even warmth that no gas oven gives you on purpose.
So a single loaf lives across two days and one fire — built on last night's heat, finished for tonight's tables. Nothing about it can be hurried, which is exactly why it tastes the way it does.
Why the crust is so dark
We bake it further than most kitchens dare. The falling heat of a wood oven is gentle enough that the crust can go deep and dark without drying out the crumb — almost black in places, and that is where the flavour lives.
A pale crust is an underbaked one. The dark shell is bitter-sweet against the sour of the crumb, it keeps the loaf fresh a day longer, and it is the honest signature of a fire, not a timer.