Maison Bertaux

Founded in 1871 by Communard refugees with strong opinions about pastry, Maison Bertaux is London's oldest patisserie and has spent a century and a half declining to modernise in any way that matters: the éclairs and Saint-Honorés are made upstairs, the tables wobble authentically onto Greek Street, and the first floor doubles as an art room whose past exhibitors run from Pierre et Gilles to Noel Fielding. Michele and Tania Wade have kept it since 1988 — Michele has been on the company's register since the eighties — and the pandemic-era crowdfunder that carried it through told you everything about its finances and its constituency in one page. Fragile, essential, continuing.