When the sun rises, this man has already been working for hours. He wears a baker's watch, as his father, Daniel, and his grandfather, Pere, did. At number 5 Plaza Garrigó, he has his shop, whose name, Panes Creativos (Creative Breads), already explains what Daniel Jordà does. The workshop and the oven are in the back room where, when it is still night, he begins to set in motion the trays with portions of a dough that has slept more than him, much more.
In this workshop, he has to do things as always and things as they have never been done. It is a laboratory where the past and the future meet. And everything goes through Daniel's imagination and hands, who, with everything he learned in his Fine Arts degree, has been opening a path of creative enrichment for everything he puts in the oven.
Organic flours from ancient wheats combine with aromas of spices, citrus, nuts, flavors that Daniel imagines can get along. This baker is like a matchmaker between raw materials. He tries and tries, to see what binds best. It is the way to bring forth new proposals at every moment.
Daniel studied Fine Arts by going to class in the afternoons, because at night he worked with his father at Forn Trinitat, which one of his brothers now runs. It all started there, in 1927, when his grandparents, children of Banyoles and Poblenou, settled in the Trinitat Vella neighborhood. It was the outskirts of the city. Some vacationers from Barcelona had built a small house on a plot in that Sant Andreu that would later receive people from Extremadura, from Galicia... who built their houses on plots in the neighborhood.
The Jordàs also built theirs, house, oven, and bread workshop, all together. Living in the back room meant that working and playing, for Daniel and his three brothers, were practically the same. Their grandfather made them make breadcrumbs, move firewood, and clean the workshop. The two older brothers, Daniel and Jordi, went down to work; whoever had cold hands went to the pastry shop to make chocolate, and whoever had warm hands ---and, therefore, would melt the chocolate---, went to the oven.
Life, when there was no school, was spent entirely between the shop and the back room, which was where the four siblings, their parents, and their paternal and maternal grandparents lived. The oven was everything. In it, their whole life was baked. And Daniel always explains: "I come from a neighborhood that in the 70s and 80s had a very bad reputation. Drugs did a lot of harm, and we had the youth prison."
But that context, in principle so unfavorable, was no obstacle for Forn Trinitat to prosper making bread for everyone, and of good quality. And when Michelin stars began to catapult some restaurants across Spain to fame, on Sundays, Daniel would buy the newspaper and look for articles that talked about those restaurants. And on Monday he would call and offer to send his breads for them to try, at no cost. This is how he gained more than a dozen clients, restaurateurs who made him the baker of the stars. And in 2008, the City Council granted them the distinction of Best Shop in the World.
And all of it, from the humble Trinitat Vella, where grandparents and parents had always woken up so early so as not to leave anyone without bread. In a notebook, they would write down who they trusted, and the day Daniel's parents got married, they burned that notebook. Details like these make Jordà's bread even better, and also that the gegants of Trinitat Vella are the recreation of Daniel's parents, Teresa Peña and Daniel Jordà, due to the neighborhood's appreciation for the baker couple.
Very soon, Forn Trinitat, founded in 1927, will celebrate its hundredth anniversary. The family still keeps some rationing cards from after the war. Many anecdotes experienced in that workshop have written a part of the books that Daniel has published. They are the legacy of a small saga of authentic neighborhood bakers, which is what he has chosen to continue being through his personal project Panes Creativos, born in 2007. In it, he has managed to combine techniques learned when he studied Fine Arts, then with the colors of painting, and today with aromas and shades of different ingredients.
In this workshop everything is possible and, every dawn, everything is yet to be done. At the back of the workshop are the sacks of flour. There is 100% whole wheat, another, 73%, rye, ancient wheats with weaker gluten; as many as one can imagine, they are there. The table where he works them, he sometimes shares with apprentices of the trade. Panes Creativos participates in the municipal program El Comerç i les Escoles, which bridges neighborhood businesses and students from educational centers, who thus have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the values of the commercial fabric.
Daniel, as his parents had already done in Trinitat, fosters a strong neighborhood bond, and also offers courses for those who want to learn to make bread at home, or for those who already know how and want to improve. For years, students from the Lexia School in Gràcia have been entering Daniel's workshop to knead, with all the love they can, a dough that they shape as they wish. They follow the instructions given by the master baker and return to school with their creations baked in the oven.
In Daniel's workshop, it's clear that Love is in the bread is not just the motto that welcomes you to the shop; in his workshop, you learn that this love shapes each piece of bread or pastry, the panettones, the cocas, everything that is baked in this Nou Barris bakery. And Love is in the bread is also the title of one of this baker's four books, who in 2022 made the best panettone in Spain and, last year, the best traditional Easter mona and the best llonguet in Catalonia. Panes, Al barro con Daniel Jordà and Panetones y brioches are the other three publications, a legacy of this third generation of bakers who proudly showcase both what they create and where they create it.
Last May 17, Daniel Jordà was the town crier for the Nou Barris district's main festival. And in his speech, he wanted to highlight that of the Spanish team working for a place on the podium for the best panettone in the world, which Ton Cortés won last year, three or four people have worked, are, or are linked to the Nou Barris district. That's why, when he was preparing the proclamation, they were looking for the district's flag to take it to the world championship. Since they couldn't find it, they drew it with symbols of the neighborhood, showed it, and left it in the district. Next October, in Milan, this team will try to surprise with a very special panettone; Daniel is the veteran advisor for its preparation.
Throughout the year, his baker's clock is guided by the festive calendar. From celebration to celebration, we always find him preparing the party, but never attending it. On the day of the blackout, he saw that people remember the small neighborhood shop when things happen. They gave bread on credit to customers who, the next day, came to pay their debt.
Daniel says, very satisfied: "There isn't a day that goes by that people don't thank me for being here and not somewhere else." Wherever he goes, in world competitions, he always has Nou Barris on his lips. "When a bakery closes, any small, traditional establishment, something important dies." Speaking of small neighborhood businesses, he says: "It's the light on the street, you know the names of the elderly people, the children come because they trust it. Like in villages, if the bakery disappears, a meeting point disappears."
This man, who masters the art of making all flavors pass through a bread dough, could be seen on the banners of the Barcelona City Council in its campaign Comerç amb cara i ulls. Now we know that his, in addition to face and eyes, is a business with soul and heart.