Matty’s Kitchen

On a grey weekday morning, a kind of cookie based curiosity leads us to the heart of Bushey where, behind an unassuming shop front, a welcoming glow promises a haven of delights.

This is Matty’s Kitchen, a bakery and cafe which began in the home kitchen of it’s namesake and has since blossomed into a beloved high street staple​.

Stepping inside, we’re greeted by the unmistakable comforting aroma of a traditional bakery, meddled with ground coffee.

The menu, reflective of Matty’s journey from home baker to community cornerstone, moves from handsome hunks of home-baked bread for taking home to brownies, cookies, individual apple Biscoff crumbles, and what can only be described as sophisticated adult Wagon Wheels in a variety of flavours. Plus a few basic salads.

Each option feels like an exploration of Matty’s philosophy—quality ingredients, made with care, for everyone to enjoy—and deciding is the most delightful of dilemmas. We settle on a caramel Wagon Wheel, a flourless, gluten free chocolate cookie and a black coffee which we order at the counter before pulling up a seat by the window, to watch the world go by.

Our order arrives in a blink and is eaten almost as fast. The Wagon Wheel is everything we remember from our childhood lunchbox plus a thick coating of creamy milk chocolate and a salted caramel sauce centre. It’s impressive but pales into insignificance beside the flourless chocolate cookie which is exactly what you’d get if an amaretti biscuit,  a meringue and one of Paul A Young’s chocolate brownies had a baby.

As we indulge, the tables around us hum with life. Mums coo over their newborns, solo visitors read newspapers and friends many decades in the making smile and laugh over coffee. It’s clear that this bakery’s role is not just as a place of business but as a vibrant part of the community, a space where, thanks to the ever-evolving array of treats, every visit is both a discovery and a return to something familiar and beloved.

Matty founded his kitchen in the lockdown of 2020, a period which highlighted the importance of community spirit to us all.

And we can’t help but feel that his success is a continued testament to this – and the enduring power of good food.