Halloween Bakery Near Me on Portobello Road: Hummingbird's Bleeding Red Velvet

The Hummingbird Bakery opened its very first shop at 133 Portobello Road in 2004, and this October that same Notting Hill counter is selling eleven Halloween bakes, from a £6.50 Gravedigger Party Pack you finish yourself to a £60 red velvet cake with a blood-red ganache drip. It opens at 10am every day, so anyone searching halloween bakery near me around Notting Hill Gate can pick up American-style cupcakes before the Saturday market crowd builds.

The bakery calls Portobello Road the place where its story began. Founder Tarek Malouf opened it in 2004 as an American-style bakery, and red velvet cupcakes became the house signature. The brand went on to publish The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook in 2009, followed by Cake Days in 2011, Home Sweet Home in 2013 and Life is Sweet in 2015, with a revised edition of the first book in 2017; the bakery says the titles have sold well over 1.5 million copies.

Not every branch has lasted. The company's own FAQ notes that its Richmond and Islington bakeries are now permanently closed, which makes the original Portobello shop the obvious one to visit for the full Halloween line. Inside there is illy coffee to drink in store and a customisation station where staff hand-pipe messages onto cakes, useful if you want a name written in green icing on a Halloween bake. The red velvet cupcake, which the bakery calls its customers' all-time favourite, costs £4.25.

Four bakes are new this year. The Little Spook is a five-inch version of the classic red velvet cake, covered in a blood-red ganache drip and topped with a small ghost, for £60. The Spooky Cutie is a six-inch cake of three vanilla sponge layers in purple vanilla buttercream for £56. Eerie Eyes are cake pops dipped in white chocolate and decorated as eyeballs, £24 for a box of six. The Gravedigger Party Pack is a chocolate cupcake with bright green frosting and decorations for you to assemble, £6.50 a kit.

Returning favourites fill out the case. The Blinkening has monster eyes peeking out of vanilla sponge in purple and green buttercream for £55, the Sprinklevainia chocolate cake costs £55 for eight to ten people or £79 for twelve to sixteen, and the Bleeding Beauty is a six-inch heart-shaped red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting for £40. Cupcake boxes are £27 for six, up from £25 last year: a classic Halloween selection of red velvet, chocolate and vanilla, a vegan box, a box made without gluten using Doves Farm ingredients, and the Bone Appétit box of red velvet cupcakes with white chocolate bones.

Our pick for a small party is the Bone Appétit box, because red velvet is what the shop does best and the white chocolate bones look striking against the red sponge. The one to think twice about is the Little Spook: at £60 for a five-inch cake it costs more than the larger Sprinklevainia, so it only makes sense if the dripping ghost is the centrepiece of your table. The Gravedigger kit is the best value of the lot and keeps children busy for a while.

Halloween cakes are best ordered online for collection at Portobello Road, and the bakery says it bakes according to your chosen collection time, so a 10am slot means a cake made that morning. It does not take same-day pre-orders through its own site; for something on the day it uses Deliveroo and Uber Eats for delivery and collection. Mini cupcakes have to be ordered by noon the day before. A friend or courier can collect for you if they bring the order number.

There is no telephone line at all. The FAQ is explicit that all help goes through email, at enquiries@hummingbirdbakery.com, answered from 9am to 6pm Monday to Saturday. That matters in the last week of October: if you need to change a collection time for a Halloween cake, send the email early in the day rather than turning up and hoping the counter can sort it out, because the order system, not the shop floor, holds your booking.

Shop hours are 10am to 6pm Monday to Friday, 10am to 7pm on Saturday and 10am to 5pm on Sunday. Saturday is both the longest day and the hardest one: it is the busiest day on Portobello Road, with the full street market and the antiques arcades open, and the pavement outside the bakery fills with market visitors from late morning. Friday is the second-busiest market day. If you are collecting a cake, a weekday morning at opening is the calmest option by far.

Sunday is a quieter alternative, since there is no street market on Portobello Road that day, though the shop closes earlier, at 5pm. If you arrive on a Saturday and the queue is out of the door, either take a cupcake to go and walk on, or order through Uber Eats and collect later. Seating has always been limited in the shop, so plan to eat on the move or at home rather than settle in with a cake and coffee on a market day.

From Notting Hill Gate station it is a short walk north along Pembridge Road into Portobello Road, past the rows of pastel-painted houses that make the street so photographed. The bakery's own blog points visitors towards the famous blue door from the film Notting Hill nearby. Carry on north and the antique stalls give way to fruit and vegetable sellers, then to street food, so a Halloween cupcake can be the sweet end of a morning working up the market.

For a full autumn afternoon, collect a box of Halloween cupcakes at opening, walk the length of Portobello Road while the antique dealers set out their stalls, and finish with coffee in the shop if a seat is free. If you are carrying a tall cake such as the Sprinklevainia, collect it last, on the way back to Notting Hill Gate, so it does not ride through the Saturday crowds for an hour.

The Hummingbird Bakery Notting Hill, 133 Portobello Road, London W11 2DY. Open Monday to Friday 10am to 6pm, Saturday 10am to 7pm, Sunday 10am to 5pm. There is no phone line; email enquiries@hummingbirdbakery.com. The nearest Underground station is Notting Hill Gate on the Central, Circle and District lines. Halloween cupcake boxes cost £27 for six, cakes run from £40 to £79, and classic cupcakes are £4.25 each. Order Halloween cakes online for collection; same-day orders go through Deliveroo or Uber Eats.