Some food businesses are built around a recipe. Common Breads was built around a feeling.
Walk into one of their bakeries and you’ll find freshly baked ka’ak hanging in the window, the smell of sesame bread in the air, and a sense that you’re stepping into something bigger than a bakery. Beneath it all is a desire to recreate the everyday warmth of Beirut in a city thousands of miles away.
A Taste of Home
For Abbas Fawaz, Abbas Zein and Kamal El Zein, the team behind Common Breads, the goal was never simply to open another bakery in London. It was to transport a small piece of home.
“Growing up in Lebanon, bread was never just bread – it was part of daily life, community, and hospitality.”
That philosophy still defines the brand today. In Beirut, bakeries aren’t somewhere you stop once a week. They’re part of the rhythm of the day. People drop in for coffee, pick up fresh bread on the way home, catch up with neighbours, and return again the next morning. It’s a culture where food and connection are inseparable.
A Beirut State of Mind
Bringing that spirit to London wasn’t necessarily straightforward.
The founders quickly noticed that London’s relationship with bakeries looked different. The city moves fast, and traditions around neighbourhood bakeries aren’t quite the same. What they didn’t expect, however, was how eager Londoners would be to discover Lebanese street food.
“What surprised us most was how curious and open Londoners were to discovering Lebanese street food once they experienced it properly.”
That openness has given Common Breads room to do something many immigrant-founded food businesses struggle with: stay authentic without feeling niche.
The Memory Behind the Menu
The hanging ka’ak display, for example, is a memory. And memories seem to fuel much of what Common Breads does.
One image, in particular, still lingers.
“One of the strongest memories is seeing ka’ak vendors cycling through the streets early in the morning, with the breads hanging from their bikes.”
You can almost picture it: quiet morning streets, baskets full of bread, and the unmistakable smell of sesame drifting through the neighbourhood. It’s exactly the kind of everyday scene that people don’t realise they miss until years later.
It’s also why ka’ak has become the bakery’s unofficial hero.
While London’s food scene constantly encourages innovation, Common Breads’ most celebrated product isn’t the newest item on the menu. It’s one of Lebanon’s oldest and most beloved street foods.
“It’s one of the most iconic street foods in Beirut and instantly brings back memories of growing up there.”
In many ways, that simple bread tells the entire story of the business. A Beirut classic finding a second home in London. A familiar tradition introduced to a completely new audience.
Tradition Meets a New Audience
The balancing act between tradition and modernity is something the founders think about often. London is one of the world’s most competitive food cities, filled with customers who are curious, informed, and always looking for something new.
Rather than adapting Lebanese baking to fit trends, they’ve largely done the opposite. Traditional Lebanese flavours remain at the heart of the menu, from za’atar and akkawi cheese to seven spice, tahini, and toum. It’s a commitment to authenticity that runs through everything they do, even as they introduce those flavours to a new audience. The visual identity of the bakery follows the same philosophy, drawing directly from Beirut’s streets rather than reinventing them.
Rather than seeing London’s demanding food scene as pressure, Common Breads has used it as motivation. The challenge has been figuring out how to evolve without losing sight of where they started and so far, they seem to have found that sweet spot.
More Than Just a Bakery
Perhaps the biggest sign of success isn’t growth or expansion plans. It’s the community they’ve built.
“Seeing people from completely different backgrounds connect over Lebanese food has been incredibly rewarding.”
That’s the magic of places like Common Breads. Someone walks in looking for breakfast and leaves with a small introduction to another culture. Someone else walks in because it reminds them of home. Both leave sharing the same table.
What’s Next?
As the brand looks toward future growth, the ambition remains surprisingly simple: keep sharing the spirit of Beirut while staying true to the values that got them here in the first place.
“We want Common Breads to keep evolving in a way that feels thoughtful and true to where we come from.”
And if Common Breads has proven anything so far, it’s that some stories travel remarkably well especially when they’re served warm.
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