A small bakery on Ponsonby Road is quietly revolutionizing Auckland's bread scene by looking backward — way backward. Tūrangawaewae Bakehouse, opened last October by husband-and-wife team Liam and Aroha Ngata, mills all its flour in-house from heritage New Zealand wheat varieties that haven't been widely cultivated since the 1940s.
The couple spent three years tracking down seed stocks of old varieties like Doyen, Cross 7, and Doyen's Favourite from agricultural research stations and small Canterbury farmers. They now work with a network of regenerative farms in the Wairarapa that grow these grains exclusively for the bakery.
"Modern wheat has been bred for yield, not flavour," says Liam, who trained at San Francisco's Tartine Bakery before returning home. "These heritage grains have this incredible depth — nutty, sweet, almost buttery. Once you taste bread made from them, supermarket loaves just don't compare."
The bakehouse's signature Aotearoa Sourdough, a 48-hour fermented loaf made with a blend of Doyen and rye, recently won the Supreme Award at the New Zealand Bakels Pie and Bread Competition, beating entries from over 200 bakeries nationwide.
Aroha, who is of Ngāti Whātua descent, sees the bakery as more than a business. "Tūrangawaewae means 'a place to stand,'" she explains. "We wanted to create a place where the whenua — the land — is honoured in every loaf. These grains are part of our agricultural whakapapa."
The bakery also runs a community grain-share program, where Auckland residents can purchase shares of the upcoming harvest and receive monthly flour deliveries. The program sold out its 200 spots within a week of launching.
Lines form early on weekends, but the Ngatas keep production deliberately small — about 150 loaves a day. "We're not trying to be everywhere," Liam says with a smile. "We're just trying to make the best bread we can, one loaf at a time."