One of Japan’s Most Respected Bakeries: Chef Hirayama of Pain Stock Visits Croisserie
Who is Pain Stock — and how Croisserie came to know it
Pain Stock, founded by Chef Tetsuo Hirayama in Fukuoka, Japan, is a destination bakery known not only for its breads, but for a distinct way of thinking about bread.
For Croisserie, the introduction did not begin with the bakery itself.
It began with a book.
When Chef Ken Jay first came across the publication, the name Pain Stock was not immediately recognised. But the method stood out. The work reflected a level of understanding that felt deliberate and complete — the kind that comes from someone who truly understands bread.
Later, the connection became clearer through Chef Katsuei Shiga. Chef Hirayama had admired Chef Shiga’s bread and was deeply inspired by his approach. Wanting to understand it more closely, he asked to work with him, eventually spending three years at Chef Shiga’s bakery in Tokyo.
This context helped Croisserie understand Pain Stock not only as a bakery, but as part of a lineage of study, interpretation, and continuation.
What remained was not the name alone, but the philosophy — and a sense that this was a direction worth studying further.
Connecting Pain Stock to Malaysia
In 2025, Taiyo Milling visited Croisserie and asked how they could help improve the bread landscape in Malaysia.
Chef Ken Jay’s request was direct: could Taiyo and Marubishi help make it possible to invite Chef Shiga and Chef Hirayama of Pain Stock to Malaysia, so that Malaysian bakers could be exposed to a different level of bread technique and bakery thinking?
The intention was not only to learn new skills.
It was to understand the mind behind a bakery.
A chef who runs a bakery carries more than recipes. He carries decisions, systems, responsibility, and the way a team is guided over time.
For Chef Ken Jay, this was an important part of the exchange. Pain Stock offered not only bread technique, but a way of thinking about how a bakery continues to improve — through leadership, reflection, and daily discipline.
The questions are not only technical:
How is consistency built?
How is a team supported?
How does a bakery create a culture where people can grow with the work?
This was the kind of learning Croisserie hoped the exchange could bring into Malaysia.
The Demonstration: 9 Doughs, 17 Expressions
In April 2026, the Pain Stock demonstration was hosted by Marubishi Malaysia in Petaling Jaya.
Across the session, Chef Hirayama presented 9 doughs and 17 different breads and presentations, giving participants a rare view into how one bakery system can create many expressions from a clear technical foundation.
The demonstration went beyond the familiar terms often associated with Japanese breadmaking, such as Yudane, Yugone, and high hydration.
Those methods were important, but they were not the whole story.
What stood out was the control of process: water, starch, acidity, temperature, time, and handling. One key example was the use of 18°C fermentation for 16 hours — a method that requires patience, discipline, and understanding of how dough develops over time.
Chef Hirayama’s doughs showed that high hydration is not about making dough wet for the sake of it. It is about managing water as structure. The goal is not only softness, but bread that remains moist, resilient, and enjoyable after baking.
During the demo, Chef Ken Jay tasted the breads and felt that they carried Chef Hirayama’s thoughts clearly.
They were not simply well-made breads.
They were thoughtful breads — breads where the result clearly carried the thinking behind it.
Each product reflected a point of view — the method, the purpose, and the decisions behind it.
“Win Before Tasting”
One phrase stayed with us from the demonstration: bread should “win before tasting”.
Before a customer eats the bread, the bread has already begun to speak.
Through its form.
Through its aroma.
Through the colour of the crust.
Through the way it sits in the showcase.
Through the curiosity it creates.
For Croisserie, this idea connects closely with the way bread is understood not only as food, but as presence. A great bakery does not wait until the first bite to communicate its standards.
Chef Hirayama also shared that a baker’s character appears in the bread.
Technique can be taught.
Formulas can be recorded.
But the character behind the work — sincerity, discipline, patience, and consistency — eventually appears in the product.
From Demonstration to Croisserie
On the final day before returning to Japan, Chef Hirayama visited Croisserie.
At Croisserie, away from the pace of the demonstration, the exchange became more reflective. Chef Ken Jay was curious about how Chef Hirayama viewed the way people often describe Pain Stock as part of a “new wave” in contemporary breadmaking.
Chef Hirayama’s response was grounded and practical. He did not frame the work as something entirely new, but as an extension of existing bread foundations.
Pain Stock’s approach traces back to earlier ideas, including the 1930s baguette, and carries a similar spirit to Respectus Panis. Chef Hirayama reinterprets these ideas through high hydration, Yudane, Yugone, long fermentation, and a precise understanding of water, starch, acidity, and structure.
In that sense, the method does not reject tradition.
It continues it.
Tradition, People, and Interpretation
During the exchange, Chef Hirayama shared an important perspective: what people call “tradition” is often not an absolute fixed truth.
Many times, tradition is one person’s method that became accepted, repeated, and eventually treated as the standard.
In Japan, bread culture was shaped by particular influential bakers and teachers. If different people had introduced bread at different moments, Japanese bread tradition might have developed in very different directions.
This idea was meaningful for Croisserie.
Bread belongs not only to countries.
It belongs to people.
“French bread” is not only France as a general idea. It is also shaped by individual bakers, their methods, their interpretations, and the way their work is carried forward by others.
Chef Hirayama also reflected that many things people think are original may already exist elsewhere. Sometimes a baker believes he has created something new, only to later discover that a similar method has long existed in Europe or another bread culture.
For him, this does not make the work less meaningful.
It simply reminds bakers to understand where methods come from, and to keep asking the most important question: How can the bread taste better?
Learning from the World
Chef Hirayama spoke about the importance of seeing bread cultures directly.
He shared how learning from other places — including Europe — helps raise the ordinary standard of a bakery. What once felt distant, almost like another world seen only through images or social media, can become real when bakers travel, observe, work, and return with new understanding.
This philosophy is also reflected in how he sees his own team at Pain Stock.
His staff come from different parts of Japan. Many of them may one day return to their hometowns and become independent. Chef Hirayama hopes that each of them can grow strongly enough to become the best in their own place.
Not by copying Pain Stock exactly.
But by carrying the discipline, curiosity, and seriousness of the work into their own environment.
This idea connected strongly with Croisserie’s own direction: to create a place where learning does not end with one chef, one trip, or one demonstration, but continues through the people who carry the work forward.
Companions, Rivals, and Raising Standards
Chef Hirayama also spoke about the value of having rivals.
For him, rivals are not enemies. They are people who help sharpen the craft.
The people around him are both companions and rivals — people who challenge each other, grow together, and raise the level of what is possible.
This way of thinking is important in a craft like breadmaking.
If a bakery works only to protect what it already knows, it becomes smaller. But when bakers continue to observe, compare, question, and improve, the standard rises for everyone.
Chef Hirayama’s philosophy is not about chasing trends. It is about doing the daily work properly, understanding where methods come from, and slowly raising what is considered normal.
Croisserie and What Comes Next
During his visit, Chef Hirayama spent time in Croisserie’s kitchen and training studio.
The space seemed to resonate with him, and the conversation naturally opened the possibility of future collaboration between Marubishi, Pain Stock, and Croisserie.
One idea discussed was not simply a class or a short demonstration, but something deeper — perhaps a Pain Stock takeover within Croisserie’s training studio.
A bakery system entering another space.
A method experienced through practice.
A chance for Malaysian bakers to observe not only products, but rhythm, process, and thinking.
For Croisserie, this is the purpose of having a training studio: not to create learning as a surface activity, but to build a space where serious exchange can happen.
Closing Reflections
What remained from the Pain Stock demonstration and Chef Hirayama’s visit to Croisserie was not only technique.
It was a way of thinking: to respect tradition without treating it as fixed dogma; to understand where methods come from; to keep learning from the world; to improve taste; to face daily work seriously; to raise standards step by step; and to allow companions and rivals to make the craft stronger.
To build a bakery like Pain Stock is not immediate. It takes years of clarity, discipline, repetition, and conviction.
For Croisserie, the exchange was a reminder that bread is never only flour, water, fermentation, and heat.
It is also lineage, interpretation, character, and the willingness to keep questioning.
This is the kind of bakery culture Croisserie hopes to keep building — quietly, consistently, and with respect for the craft.