A new bakery in London fusing Vietnamese and French flavours aims to tap into a growing trend for Asian-inspired bakery products.

MoBa, which is short for Modern Bakery, opened on Goodge Street on 30 March, serving a range of Vietnamese-style street food baguettes, known as bánh mì, with fillings such as salmon gravlax, Thai beef bourguignon, Japanese lime and homemade pickled veg.

Other bakery products at the so-called ‘bánh mì and boulangerie’, which has been set up by Frenchmen Theodore Charoy and Thibaut Voury, include matcha brownies, mango cheesecake, Thai pies and green tea croissants.

The shop is part of a new wave of operators selling Asian-influenced bakery products. Several bánh mì restaurant and café chains have sprung up in the capital in the past year, including Banh Mi Bay with three outlets and newly launched Whaam Bánh Mì, which plans to open 10 sites in London.

Master baker Geoffroy Terrasson de Fougères will head up production at MoBa.

“Bánh mì is a sandwich that dates back to the French colonisation of Indochina – it’s actually a phonetic misspelling of ‘pain de mie’, which can be translated simply as ‘sliced bread’,” he explained. “We are witnessing the growing trend of creative bánh mì takeaway outlets opening in the USA, and we are extremely excited and confident of the trend taking off in London, and hopefully the rest of the UK, thanks to MoBa.”