Part of the charm of the delightful new boulangerie and patisserie Just Teddy in the Hyde Park Corner shopping centre, Joburg, is the story behind it. It’s owned and run by a French Lebanese family, the Zakis. Teddy was their much-loved grandfather, who stowed away on a ship with his father and sisters years ago to come to SA. In rags and riches, over decades of ups and downs, he went from selling manure to being a big-time horse racing trainer. The family also went into property in the south of Joburg.

With chairs and tables spilling out into the communal area on the bottom floor of the mall, Just Teddy feels a bit like something you might find in an arrondissement of Paris where you might swing by for a quick coffee and baguette. Teddy jnr is this generation’s patriarch, and the store’s resident chef. He was a runner-up in The Great South African Bake Off, which aired on DStv’s BBC Lifestyle channel in 2015. Insistent from an early age that his real love was baking, Teddy wo...

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