Behind the scenes as chef Nico Simeone opens new Glasgow bakery

Six by Nico continues to be a remarkable Glasgow hospitality success story. An improvised food concept to fit a unit in Finnieston that was offered to chef Nico Simeone grew into a company, headquartered near Park Circus, that now operates a total of 13 restaurants across the UK and Ireland, including 10 under the Six by Nico brand.

From today, you can add one bakery, Valaria on Byres Road. In a matter of weeks it will be joined by another Six by Nico, Glasgow’s third, when the latest addition opens just down the road in what was the Fopp music store, close to popular dining spots Ka Pao and Crabshakk Botanics.

In the year after covid restrictions were lifted, the brand reported operating profits of £4.4 million compared to a loss of £600,000 during the pandemic-stricken previous 15 months. Nico recently secured a £11.5 million funding facility with challenger bank ThinCats to support international expansion plans that include a new venture in Dubai. There’s talk of a new bar in the first half of 2023.

The headcount within the business is approaching 500. The creative force driving the operation is focused around Chief Operating Officer Rachael Rafferty, who I first met when she was in leading the front of house team in the compact original restaurant in Finnieston, Chief Creative Officer and development chef Andrew Temple and Nico himself who grew up in Glasgow surrounded by family food influences and now plots out which new ideas can be added to his portfolio.

Yesterday, all three were in Valaria arranging cakes, cookies and pastries. There was a sense of anticipation, looking forward to getting underway after months of planning, but also a keen awareness that this was different from what they had achieved before by replicating the winning formula of the rotating tasting menu from Six by Nico.

The patisserie is bright and colourful without being too contrived. The cake display is a mix of the traditional and the unusual. Tiny details on the bakes are meticulously achieved.

Glasgow-based contractors One Call re-imagined the space at 333 Byres Road in Glasgow’s West End alongside Burns Design. The interior has a light, neutral colour palette with two core shades of pink and a pistachio green. There’s a lot of light from the large windows and space to sit in for your cake and coffee with booths and individual tables.

Yesterday, as the room was being prepared, the local interest was clear to see. Noticing activity, every few minutes someone would wander in thinking they were already open, looking to pick up a fresh baguette or a set of macarons.

Today, there were queues outside and the new neighbourhood bakery had sold out by 5pm. They will open at 11am on day two tomorrow to give them time to reset before looking at 8am-8pm opening times, seven days a week.

What’s on the menu?

A large selection of artisan choux pastries and signature eclairs, including tiramisu, cereal milk, salted caramel, rhubarb and custard, raspberry, rose, and lychee flavours are at the heart of the menu.

Tarte tatin, creme brulee, apple, cherry, and rhubarb flavoured patisserie, as well as a daily assortment of French macaron flavours, will be available at the counter.

Valaria also serves a variety of breakfast pastries such as danish, croissants, and pain au chocolat, as well as their own house coffee blend, sourced responsibly from Brazil and Columbia, flavoured with dark chocolate, hazelnut, and candied mandarin.

Nico Simeone on new bakery Valaria

How does this fit into your expanding Glasgow hospitality business?

Valaria is something new for the company, something that we have not done before so we’re excited. Our ethos from Six by Nico is keep on creating, introducing new products and not stand still. We’ve grown as a team and we’ve been lucky enough to have some amazing talent around us and that gave us the skillset. We’ve wanted to do this for a while, now we believe we have the right to execute it.

What do you want to achieve with the Valaria concept?

The main focus is just this unit. This is the only one we have. And then we’re just hoping that the consumer enjoys it and once we learn more about the products, learn more from the customers and get our feedback and try to learn from it and hopefully if it’s a success, fingers crossed, grow it throughout the UK the same way we did with Six by Nico.

Will you make major changes to the selection in the bakery similar to your approach with Six by Nico?

I think it’s going to be a hybrid here. I find learning from the customers helps with developing some favourites that will never change. Maybe 30% of our menu, but 70% we want to constantly reinvent, create, use seasonal products, work every month, every season, always launching, bring out new products.

How did you decide what the bakery would look like?

This was just working with the designers, it’s the same kind of processes. They start picking stuff for us to look at, we choose colour tones, palettes, and evolving from there. Valaria comes from both my daughter’s names, Valenti and Laia, so that’s inspired a name for the bakery.