Meet The Baker: Coleytown Cottage Micro Bakery

We have a thing for people who do the unexpected pivot, and Mike O’Hara and Coleytown Cottage Micro Bakery might be our favorite one yet.

Patent lawyer turned biophysicist turned… sourdough baker? YES! Mike spent years in NYC and DC working IP law for biotech companies, after a graduate degree studying heat shock proteins.

Then, a move to Westport was already in motion, and two little girls needed a dad at home. Somewhere in there, the bread came back. Because, in a less traditional way, bread was always there.

Growing up in Canada, Mike’s mother taught high school biology and chemistry by day and baked legendary loaves by night, the kind neighbors traded fish, produce, and even moose meat to get their hands on.

Now Coleytown Cottage Micro Bakery is a licensed Cottage Food Operation running out of the family’s Easton Road home. Mike mills his own organic wheat berries, bakes whole wheat, white, and sandwich sourdoughs, and takes special requests for focaccia and pinsa romana. This fall he’s sourcing heritage wheat from mills in Quebec and Ontario, chasing the northern varieties he grew up on.

He’s also turned it into a family classroom, teaching his daughters math and science through the lens of fermentation and ratios, and brought a bread lesson to Coleytown Elementary that the kids are still talking about. Classes and parties may be next.

Find him, and get on the list before the website drops, on Instagram @coleytowncottagemb

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