Woman launches bakeshop with a 'Spanish touch' in Banbury town centre

Helena Volkman Noguero runs Piscolabis Bakeshop - a local bakery with a Spanish touch, which offers people everything from donuts, homemade bread to mini sandwiches to Spanish specialties of churros and empanadas. (photo submitted from Piscolabis Bakeshop)

A woman has launched a bakeshop with a Spanish touch in the town centre of Banbury.

Helena Volkman Noguero opened her bakeshop several months ago, but has made several changes in recent weeks to the shop located in Church Lane of the town centre.

She said: "I used to have a mini donut stall at the market in town, and then I decided to open up a shop."

Piscolabis Bakeshop offers people everything from donuts made from scratch, homemade bread to baguettes or mini sandwiches.

Helena also bakes homemade fresh Spanish empanadas everyday. She described an empanada as a Spanish style pastry with different fillings inside.

On the day she spoke with the Banbury Guardian she had several types for sale including spinach feta cheese, chicken and mushroom, sardines with tomato and roasted peppers, chicken curry with peppers and hot dog - chorizo with onion and peppers.

Helena said: "Empanadas are very popular in Spain. I make new ones fresh everyday.

"You can't really find empanadas in the UK. They're healthy and homemade, and last a couple of days."

After talking to Helena the Banbury Guardian tried the chicken curry with peppers empanada. Having tried one for the first time I would highly recommend trying an empanada at Helena's bakeshop.

But the donuts and churros have already proven popular with customers.

One customer, who came to the shop during the interview with the Banbury Guardian, said: "We're going to pretend like we didn't come out just for your churros."

Helena and her bakeshop also make cakes, and will provide for special events too.

When she opened the shop earlier this year it was originally called Fried City. But she changed the name several weeks ago to help customers understand what she served in the shop.

Helena said: "A lot of people thought it was fried chicken and kababs so I changed it.

"My first idea was to have everything fried with a Spanish touch from fried churros to mini donuts and fried apple pies.

"The idea was to bring some fried food from Spain to Banbury.

"I just wanted to do something different that's homemade with a Spanish touch."

The opening hours for Piscolabis Bakeshop are Tuesday to Saturday from 9.30am to 5.30pm.