Bread Theory

I’m really fascinated by food cultures and storytelling, and how food has connected people throughout history. My background is in food anthropology, which is essentially the idea that, because we cook and eat multiple times a day, our relationship with food tells us something about who we are, what we value, and how we live our lives.

Rebel Bread began in 2018 in Five Points. In January of 2020, we moved into our current location in an old culinary school in the Denver Design District. We’ve since expanded through a few different iterations in the space, and we opened the cafe and teaching kitchen one year ago. We tried to repurpose what we could from the culinary school, such as the lockers and benches in our hallways, as a way to pay homage to the space’s previous life. Education has always been really important to us as a company, so it felt like kismet that we found a space already set up to focus on culinary instruction.

When we first moved into the Design District space, we were a wholesale-only business. Then, when COVID hit just a couple of months later, we lost the entire wholesale business overnight. From there, we pivoted to home delivery and started doing farmers markets, including the South Pearl Farmers Market.

Over the next couple of years, we focused on building back the wholesale business, baking for coffee shops, restaurants, and grocery programs: we make 200 to 600 loaves of bread in a day, and up to 2500 pastries, including croissants, muffins, cookies, and scones.

Led by Education

Throughout Rebel Bread’s history, we’ve always offered classes. We love having people come in who are interested in what we do because we don’t actually get to meet most of the people who eat our products at the various places around town where you can find us. I have always dreamed of opening a baking school, and now that we have the teaching kitchen space, it’s been really fun to see that dream fulfilled. We have a fantastic team of teachers who enjoy working with people of all levels and backgrounds.

I grew up in Northern California and studied contemporary Italian culinary traditions and identity at UCLA. I entered my first baking competition while in college. I don’t remember if I won, but it was the first time I got to share my hobby with other people. Everyone was really positive and supportive, and it made me think: “Maybe I could do something with this.”

After college, I attended the San Francisco Baking Institute and completed a Professional Bread and Viennoiserie program. (Viennoiserie being “laminated” baked goods such as croissants and brioche, which required layering butter into dough). The school was one freeway exit away from where I grew up, and my mentor, who had opened a little French retail bakery across the Bay, encouraged me to attend. Then, I got there and realized that a good portion of the students in our program were international, from the UK, India, Mexico, and Brazil. Then I understood how fortunate I had been to be able to enroll in the Institute essentially on a whim. After the program, I moved to Denver and founded Rebel Bread.

Rebel doesn’t necessarily have a set curriculum, but we make sure that all of our classes are rooted in actual education and science. They’re designed to be meaningful, purposeful events that celebrate the art of gathering. Bread Theory is one of the pillars of our baking school—it’s the idea that all bread essentially works the same way, regardless if you’re making hamburger buns or bagels or sourdough. The pastry fundamentals of our curriculum give students the ability to add all the various techniques and skills to their repertoire to make different kinds of pastries and breads.

Local Flavor

Grain diversity is another pillar at Rebel and one we care about deeply. Sustainability, supporting local agriculture, and buying flour that’s grown in Colorado has become increasingly important to our business and to our curriculum. Rye, in particular, is a cover crop in the San Luis Valley that uses half the water of the alfalfa and potatoes typically grown there. So we’re trying to raise awareness and persuade local farmers to plant more rye as a potential solution to the region’s ongoing water crisis.

Another example is Rouge de Bordeaux, an ancient wheat variety originally from France. It was used for baguettes, but it nearly went extinct. Luckily, there was an old French Mill where someone collected seeds from the cracks of the mill’s floorboards. The seeds made their way across the ocean, and it turns out that this particular grain grows really well in Colorado. It has a great cinnamon spice note, and we use it in most of our sourdough—it’s definitely become a characteristic Rebel Bread flavor.

Community Focus

We are lucky to have a really great baking scene in Colorado. A lot of people come here from the coasts or from other major cities and realize they can do their own thing, which they might not be able to afford to do in places like New York or San Francisco, for example. We get a lot of great talent in Denver, and I think our community is very supportive of small businesses in general.

I have always loved county fair-style baking competitions. I felt inspired to start something like that at Rebel, so we started hosting a contest in 2023 for local bakers to bring their best bites forward for judgment, as part of a community festival and friendly baking competition we call Denver Bake Fest. This is our fourth year hosting Bake Fest, which takes place on the first Saturday in October. Proceeds from tasting ticket purchases benefit the organization Culinary Hospitality Outreach and Wellness (CHOW), which is a local nonprofit that supports mental health resources for the hospitality industry, which is really important to our company.

Homegrown Health

My family is Italian, and I studied in Bologna during college, where I observed firsthand how Italians can be almost superstitious in the way they approach digestion. We don’t drink large quantities of milk in the afternoon (no cappuccinos after 11 a.m.!), and then there’s the aperitivo before dinner, the digestivo after dinner, and also the little portion sizes and the order of dishes served; all of these cultural things are to improve digestion.

So, I often think about how we eat constantly, and I’ve made a choice to try and be surrounded by higher quality food in my life. Because of that, Rebel is a bakery that I hope is approachable, like an entry point for people to start learning about and consuming higher-quality food. We give away free sourdough starters. We hold free office hours every Friday, which is an accessible way to come in and learn more without taking a full class. On Friday Nights, we host pizza service, which is another fun way to get the community to come together.

I want Rebel Bread to be the place where people come for all levels of instruction. We want to talk about grains. We want to talk about the agriculture behind it, the digestion, the techniques, and processes. We want to share our depth of knowledge in a way that is accessible for people who are interested in taking up the mantle of these cooking and baking traditions. We strive to be the place for meetups and community events. To foster connection among bakers, where they can meet and learn from each other. And ultimately, I just really want to teach America how to bake bread.

Zach Martinucci is the founder of Rebel Bread and is dedicated to challenging our relationship with food—one community, conversation, and loaf of bread at a time.