How a 200-Year-Old Kolkata Bakery Keeps Christmas Alive with Wood-Fired Ovens (PHOTOS)

Long before electric ovens, Instagram bakeries, and glossy patisserie windows became the norm, there was firewood, flour, and patience. In a narrow lane of central Kolkata, those elements still come together at Ajmiri’s Bakery, a modest shop that has quietly witnessed nearly two centuries of Christmas seasons.

As the city gears up for Christmas 2025, Ajmiri’s stands at a delicate crossroads — preparing for its busiest time of the year while confronting the possibility that its oldest tradition may soon be extinguished.

The heart of Ajmiri’s Bakery is not its counter or shelves, but its wood-fired oven, glowing relentlessly through the winter weeks. The oven has baked fruitcakes, biscuits, and bakarkhanis for generations, imparting a flavour that regulars insist cannot be replicated.

In an earlier interview with The Indian Express, Sheikh Khadimul Bashar recalled stating, “I have been working in this shop since I was in Class VI. My family has owned the bakery for seven generations.”

Family accounts suggest the bakery has remained in the same spot for almost 200 years — a rare continuity in a city constantly rebuilding itself.

December transforms the bakery. Orders begin pouring in days ahead of Christmas, queues spill out onto the street, and the air fills with the dense aroma of fruitcakes slowly baking over firewood.

Customers arrive from across Kolkata — some returning year after year, others drawn by word of mouth. The experience is unchanged: no digital menus, no online deliveries — just waiting, watching, and trusting the baker.

For many, that wait is part of the ritual.

Despite its popularity, Ajmiri’s faces an uncertain future. Regulations have made wood-fired baking increasingly difficult. The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has reportedly stopped issuing new licences for wood-fired ovens, citing pollution concerns.

For Ajmiri’s, the issue is not just regulatory — it is existential. The bakery’s identity is inseparable from the oven itself. An electric replacement, the family believes, would change the taste, texture, and soul of their products.

The bakery sits at the edge of Bow Barracks, a neighbourhood historically home to Kolkata’s Anglo-Indian community. Here, histories mingle — British colonial tastes interwoven with Indian rhythms. During the British Raj, the community mostly relished the bakarkhanis made here. 

These simple yet fragrant flatbreads — made from flour, eggs, butter, cloves, and salt — take just a few minutes in the blazing oven, but the memory of their flaky softness lasts much longer for those who grew up eating them.

Inside the bakery, change has been minimal by design. Sheikh Hasibul Rahman, Bashar’s son, represents the next generation keeping watch over the ovens. According to them, these are all European recipes and they haven’t changed over the years.

From coconut biscuits to classic cookies and dense Christmas cakes, the methods remain faithful to the past. One conscious departure, however, stands out: Ajmiri’s never uses wine in its baking, even in traditional Christmas cakes — a choice rooted in family belief rather than market demand.

As Christmas 2025 approaches, Ajmiri’s prepares as it always has — stacking ingredients, stoking the oven, and readying itself for long days and longer nights. Yet beneath the seasonal cheer lies quiet uncertainty. If the wood-fired oven goes, many fear that what survives may be a bakery in name alone.

For now, though, the fire still burns. And as long as it does, Ajmiri’s remains a place where Kolkata’s Christmas tastes exactly as it once did — smoky, rich, and deeply familiar.