Welcome.

Since the very start

Baking has always been an everyday part of Alysia's life. Taught from scratch by her late Nan, she spent her afternoons filling the old farmhouse with the most delicious smells, with homemade treats waiting for the family when they got home from work. Sundays were always a homemade roast and a crumble or tart of some sort, with apples, rhubarb, plums or berries fresh from the garden. Welsh cakes on the griddle of the old Rayburn were basically a daily occurrence, and jam tarts were practically an essential weekly snack. The basics came first. Combined with her love of travel and food, her recipes have adapted and evolved into a hybrid of good traditional cooking with modern flavours and techniques.

Alysia worked her way through hospitality, mostly at the King Arthur in Gower, and that's where she developed her love for the trade. Working in different departments taught her both traditional country-inn cooking and the more refined banqueting style of the weddings. She picked up different skills over the years, always watching and learning from others.

In 2019 Haystack Bakery opened: Alysia's first solo kitchen and business partnership. Then Covid struck, and the workload multiplied in ways no one could have imagined, building an impressive portfolio and platform in the Swansea baking scene.

In December 2025, Alysia finally opened her own place. Based in Uplands, and using the local markets as her point of sale, she is slowly building her own reputation, bringing past skills, knowledge and recipes with her own twist. The name Melys came easily: it means "sweet" in Welsh, and with her own name, Lys, inside it, the word felt perfect for her first solo venture.

The future? Who knows. But the dream has always been a bakery and café serving sweet and savoury treats every day.