ALMA TALKS:
#4: Pastry
date: Monday, May 25, 2026
location: ALMA Prague
The event will be held in Czech and English. There will be a possibility to use headphones on site to listen to simultaneous interpretation in both languages.
There is something almost magical about pastry. Flour, water, butter, time… and suddenly a crisp crust, a tender crumb, a perfectly laminated croissant. What seems simple is the result of patience, precision, and knowledge passed down through generations.
Pastry is both a daily ritual and a craft. It carries memories of childhood kitchens, neighbourhood bakeries, and regional traditions, while constantly evolving through new approaches and changing expectations. It is shaped by hands, fermentation, heat, and intuition, but increasingly also by technology, operational realities, and the evolving demands of guests.
Every loaf is the outcome of a series of decisions: where the grain comes from, how the flour is milled, how much time the dough is given, and how demanding production has become within today’s economic and working conditions. Pastry is therefore not only a matter of taste, but also of origin, process, and accessibility.
AlmaTalks #4 invites bakers, farmers, millers, and gastronomic thinkers to an open discussion about what quality in baking means today. How are craft, technology, and responsibility connected? And can pastry help us rethink the relationship between gastronomy, landscape, the city, and community?
Topics we will touch upon:
🌾 Flour as a decision:
Local grain varieties, stone milling and natural variability or standardized production? How does flour influence flavour, character, and the consistency of baking in everyday operations? Where does terroir end and the need for stability begin?
🌱 Regenerative grain:
can demand reshape the landscape? Do bakers and restaurants have a real influence on how grain is grown today? Is regenerative flour a systemic change, or still primarily a premium niche?
🏙 The bakery as urban infrastructure:
Neighbourhood bakeries are returning as a natural part of smaller towns as well as big city districts. What role does a bakery play in the everyday life of a community today and what does it actually take to open and sustain one in the long term?
💸 The cost of quality:
What does good bread really cost today? How do ingredients, energy, labour, and time shape its price? Is it possible to bake with quality while remaining accessible and how can artisanal production scale sustainably?
🌿 Bread and health:
Demand for higher fibre content and “gut-friendly” products is growing. Is this genuinely changing the quality and direction of baking, or simply the way we talk about it?
⚙️ Technology as a co-author:
Controlled fermentation, climate-controlled proofing, digital monitoring, and new oven technologies are transforming the daily operation of bakeries. Does technology help maintain quality as bakeries grow and face labour shortages or does it change the very nature of the craft?
where And how
The event capacity is 100 people. Most of the programme will take place in the ALMA restaurant, some parts will be held in Alma's underground conference space.
ALMA TALKS CATERING
The conference programme includes several refreshments, all created by Alma's chef Petr Žídek. The price includes a morning welcome meal, a two-course lunch and an afternoon coffee break.
SPEAKERS
Alejandro Luna (VE)
Alejandro is a pastry chef and consultant with a global career across top kitchens in the US, Asia, and Australia. Former Executive Pastry Chef at Sonoma Baking Co., he blends classic technique with production-driven thinking. Known for his work in sourdough, panettone, and lamination, he builds systems, develops teams, and delivers consistent, high-quality pastry at scale.
Laura Lazzaroni (IT)
Laura is a bread consultant, author, and former editor specializing in heirloom and evolutionary population wheats. With a background in biology and editorial leadership at Food&Wine Italia, D di Repubblica, and L'Uomo Vogue, she bridges agriculture, craft, and culture. Known for her work with restaurants, bakeries, and farms across Italy and worldwide, she advises on heritage grain bread programs and is completing a new bread book for Phaidon (2027).
Giovanni Marabese (IT)
Giovanni is an Italian food anthropologist researching ingredients, practices, and culinary traditions on the edge of disappearance. In 2021, he founded Tone Bread Lab., a contemporary bakery that uses bread as a medium to explore, reinterpret, and preserve food cultures from remote regions of the world. His work sits at the intersection of gastronomic sciences, ethnobotany, and ocean conservation, combining field research with everyday practice in the bakery.
Laura Valli (ES)
Dr Laura Valli is an interdisciplinary researcher exploring food systems with a focus on the cultural, ecological, political and embodied dimensions of grains. Laura earned her PhD at Washington State University Breadlab, where she examined the meaning of rye in localized food systems. Originally from Estonia, rye is both an identity and a teaching tool for her. And perhaps most importantly, a way to connect with others.
Marek Borský (CZ)
Marek is an entrepreneur, consultant, trainer, and founder of Supernova Bakehouse. With nearly 10 years in the industry, he has spent the last four building his own concept focused on artisan pastry, croissant dough, and specialty coffee. Alongside his own business, he consults and educates — helping new projects get off the ground on solid foundations. His approach connects product quality, strong concept, and sustainable business.
David Balcar (CZ)
David Balcar is a co-founder of Bacili and Nemléko, projects focused on fermentation and plant-based food alternatives. His work centers on exploring new approaches to food production and processing, with an emphasis on quality, taste, and sustainability. He is currently involved in the Boží mlýny project, where he and his team are developing a contemporary approach to milling and working with raw ingredients within a broader gastronomic context.
Martina Kornfeilová (CZ)
Martina is a CEO and co-owner of Kornfeil, a family company developing and manufacturing professional bakery technology exported to over 50 countries worldwide. At the helm since 2022, she continues her father's legacy while pushing the brand toward global excellence. A mother of three, she speaks openly about balancing family and leadership, and is a recurring name on Forbes Czech Republic's Most InfluentialWomen list.
Martin Hutař (CZ)
Martin is co-founder of PROBIO, based in Staré Město, specializing in the milling of gluten and gluten-free grains and legumes into a wide range of certified organic products. At the PROBIO Eco-Farm in Velké Hostěrádky, he farms 400 hectares of arable land using ecological methods, holding DEMETER certification since 2024. He is a long-standing advocate for heritage crops, ecological farming, and organic food.
Tomáš Kočárek (CZ)
Tomáš is the CEO of Ten Art Stroje, a company based in Příbram that focuses on supplying technology for bakeries and confectioneries. In his role, he is involved in the company’s development, cooperation with European manufacturers, and finding practical solutions for customers in the industry. The company has long represented selected manufacturers, mainly from Germany and Italy, and places emphasis on functionality, reliability, and the real needs of day-to-day operations.
Ladislav Adámek (CZ)
Ladislav is an entrepreneur, consultant, and above all co-founder and owner of Bread Addiction, a craft bakery based in Portsmouth, southern England, established in 2014. A trained mechanical engineer by background, he built a bakery specialising in sourdough bread and laminated dough from day one. For the past four years he has been living back in the Czech Republic, running the UK business remotely, with a vision to expand into the Czech market.
Jan Čulík (CZ)
Jan is a hospitality entrepreneur and proud local patriot from Tábor. He is the driving force behind Pekárna Lužnice, a sourdough bakery founded in 2021 with a focus on locally milled flour and direct relationships with farmers, the natural wine bar Thir, and the AlmaWines project. He also organises Bottled Alive, a natural wine festival, and believes that good food and drink should always have a concrete origin and a face behind it.
Juliana Fischerová (CZ)
Juliana is a baker and educator. In 2021 she co-founded the Sourdough Map, a platform that allowed people to share sourdough starter across the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and beyond, helping spark a wider wave of interest in sourdough bread. She writes about bread, grain, and food in general, hosted a programme on Czech Radio Wave, and has baked both at home and in professional settings. Today she focuses primarily on running baking workshops and training sessions for both emerging and established bakeries.
SCHEDULE
9:10 – 9:30
Doors open
Coffee & registration
9:30 – 9:45
Opening remarks
Moderator: Vanda Kofroňová
9:45 – 10:15
Alejandro Luna
Where Does Craft End? The Blur Between Craft and Scale
The pastry industry often separates “artisan” and “industrial” into completely different worlds. But where does that line actually exist? Is craftsmanship defined by handwork, small batches, and tradition, or can it survive automation, systems, and scale?
Through the lens of fermentation, consistency, technology, labour, and modern production, this talk challenges some of the industry’s most romanticised ideas about what makes pastry truly “artisan.”
10:15 – 10:45
Giovanni Marabese
Tradition Is the Result of Contamination: Bread, Identity, and the Future of Baking Culture
The talk explores how contemporary bakeries can move beyond the rhetoric of “Made in Italy” to become spaces of cultural contamination, ecological reflection, and experimentation.
Rather than treating bread as a fixed tradition, the talk presents baking as an evolving ecosystem shaped by agriculture, migration, identity, and technology. From regenerative grain systems and ancient baking techniques to seaweed as a future staple ingredient, it calls for a coexistence of innovation and heritage without resisting change.
10:45 – 11:15
Coffee break
11:15 – 11:45
Panel discussion: Technology as a Co-Author
Martina Kornfeil (Kornfeil) & Tomáš Kočárek (TENART stroje)
Technology has quietly become one of the most influential ingredients in contemporary baking.
Fermentation control, climate chambers, digital monitoring, new oven technologies, and production systems are rapidly transforming the everyday reality of modern bakeries. As bakeries grow and labour becomes increasingly difficult to secure, technology is no longer just a tool — it is becoming a co-author of the final product.
This panel explores how bakeries navigate the tension between craftsmanship, consistency, scale, and automation.
11:45 – 12:30
Laura Lazzaroni
How Heirloom Wheat Varieties and Evolutionary Populations Are Reshaping Italian Baking
For a long time, bread in Italy had become remarkably standardised. In recent years, however, a growing movement of bakers and farmers has begun baking for flavour, nutrition, and a stronger sense of place.
Laura Lazzaroni talks about her work connecting agronomists, growers, millers, and bakers working with old wheat varieties and evolutionary populations, and asks what it takes to rebuild regional baking cultures today.
12:30 – 13:45
Lunch break
13:45 – 14:15
Laura Valli
From High-Protein Wheats to Rye Brownies: Is the Pursuit of “the Best” the Enemy of Diversity?
We praise biodiversity in theory, yet continue to reward sameness in practice.
Laura Valli explores how grain breeding, agriculture, and baking cultures increasingly narrow what is grown, baked, and ultimately valued, and asks how diversity can survive within a system that continuously undermines it.
14:15 – 14:50
David Balcar & Petr Zeman
When Flour Has a Story: Boží Mlýny + Q&A with Martin Hutař (PROBIO)
Moderated by Juliana Fischerová (Maškrtnica)
Great bread has two authors: the farmer and the baker. Yet the two often never meet. Between the field and the oven stands an anonymous supply chain where origin, relationships, and accountability get lost. David Balcar and Petr Zeman will introduce Boží Mlýny, a project working to close that distance. The presentation will open into a moderated discussion on the origin of ingredients, supply chain transparency, and how bakeries can build direct relationships with farmers and millers in the reality of everyday operations. Martin Hutař from Probio will also join the conversation.
14:50 – 15:10
Coffee break
15:10 – 16:00
Closing Panel: Between the Millstones
Craft, business, and the realities of modern baking
Marek Dvorský (Supernova Bakehouse), Jan Čulík (Pekárna Lužnice), Ladislav Adámek (Bread Addiction)
Running a bakery today means constantly balancing between ideals and reality.
Between craftsmanship and consistency. Between local flour and operational stability. Between rising energy costs, labour shortages, customer expectations, and the pressure to grow without losing identity.
Can craftsmanship survive scale? Is the romantic vision of the neighbourhood bakery economically sustainable? Is bakery ownership still desirable in 2026?
In this closing discussion, bakery owners reflect on the everyday paradoxes of contemporary baking, and on what it actually means to build and maintain a bakery today.
16:00 - 18:00
Wine & informal networking
thank you for your support
