Balance is everything when it comes to bread. You need the right amount of flour, water, yeast and salt, adjusted for weather, the type of grain and style of milling, the minerality of the water and the moods of the bread gods. The touch of the baker, the caress of the oven, the tick of the clock: everything matters.

You definitely get the feeling that everything matters, and all matters are attended to, at Baguette Studios, a small dine-in and takeaway bakery in one of those peculiarly North Melbourne streets that are a few steps from hospital, university, trams and eight lanes of traffic but also feel somehow like a country town.

This family business, open since December, is a collaboration between pastry chef Aileen Seo, her baker husband Paul Kwon and her chef brother Jiho Sur. The Seoul-born trio are passionate about French baked goods and Australian ingredients: these influences are plaited into their store.

There's the Gallic faith in bread as an everyday staple that nevertheless should be perfect. There's Korean passion, precision and creative trend-watching. And there's Australian single-origin wheat from Provenance Flour in New South Wales.

The descriptor "Studios" is telling. Bread and pastries are displayed behind glass like sculptures or artefacts and there's an artisanal, if ephemeral, poise in every sandwich, loaf or snack.

Instant classics include the "jambon et fromage", a baguette with juicy house-cured rare-breed ham, gruyere and pickle, and the three-cheese sourdough toastie that layers emmental, gruyere and cheddar with caramelised onion and horseradish mayonnaise.

You may suspect the cheesy triple play would be overkill but the balance is so carefully calibrated for meltiness, milkiness and bite that it eats as a symphony not a cacophony.

Did you know bread can be pretzelised? Baker Paul prepares a buttery, yeasted dough, makes a demi-baguette shape, dips it briefly into a caustic soda solution, then bakes it to a deep tan. Hey pretzel!

Rich and savoury with a lovely sheen, the roll is filled with smoked salmon, a sweet and lemony cream cheese mix, slivers of red onion and a creamy caper and chive dressing. What a sandwich.

The croissants here are purposely soft, made with a milk poolish (a kind of pre-ferment of flour and yeast) that aims at flavour rather than flakiness.

Newsflash: the shatter-crisp Lune croissant is a style, not the only game in town. If you like a croissy that you can tear and fondle, this one might be your vibe. (I'm a fan.)

I'll finish with the burger because the burger finished with me: it's so good. Wagyu mince is marinated in a Korean galbi-style mix of soy sauce, garlic, sugar, apple and kiwi. When cooked, the patty caramelises to a heady, tasty char.

Layered on a brioche bun with sweet onion, cos, American cheese and housemade mayo, it's a squishy blast of umami joy and – like everything here – it's built to please and beautifully balanced.