Melbourne bakers the best thing since sliced bread

COELIACS, look away now: bread isn’t dead and in 2017, the best thing since sliced bread might just be sliced bread. Here are Melbourne’s best bakeries for any time of day.

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SUGAR? It’s still sweet. Fat? As Austin Powers might say, it’s back baby! No, for the biggest dietary demon plaguing our plates, you need look no further than those loaves in the oven.

We’ve been told bread is bad, that carbs will kill you quicker than having three standard drinks while sitting down with a ciggie.

But thanks to the nonbelievers, who are baking crackingly crusted loaves and brilliant buns, bread isn’t dead and in 2017, the best thing since sliced bread might just be sliced bread.

Here are Melbourne’s best new bakers and bakeries and all the very good things spread on bread to see you through the day and well into the night. Coeliacs, look away now.

Agathe Kerr’s South Melbourne market stall was so popular that she opened a stand-alone store in the CBD. Picture: Nicki Connolly

NEW-SCHOOL BAKERIES

Agathe Kerr’s South Melbourne Market stall proved so deliciously popular that it has grown into a CBD outpost in the Royal Arcade.

But it’s from the original market home Agathe is now baking brilliant French baguettes that are being snapped up by the armload by South Melbourne shoppers and city suits alike.

Fellow countryman Gontran Cherrier is likewise doing the same at his second Australian boulangerie that’s just opened in Hawthorn. Here you’ll find his famed miso rye bread, award-winning baguettes and squid-ink buns that have found fans around the world.

At Northcote’s newest bakery, All are Welcome, along with savoury tartines, French-style pastries and Russian-style cakes, Boris Portnoy is also serving up khachapuri, a cheese-filled bread that’s considered one of Georgia’s national dishes.

INTRODUCING THE GOLD-COVERED DOUGHNUT

Gontran Cherrier has just opened his second Melbourne boulangerie store in Hawthorn. Picture: Rebecca Michael

Back in South Melbourne, Ox Noonan — aka Ox the Baker — is making what he describes simply as “good old-fashioned bread”. That’s hand baked, long-fermented (up to 92 hours!) naturally leavened sourdough that comes in a range of loaves and buns.

“I make real bread without the crap, which means no commercial yeast, no semi-sourdough or hybrid wannabe bread, no preservatives, fillers or ascorbic acid.”

New to East Brunswick is Wild Life Bakery, where a smartly converted warehouse
is part-cafe, part bakery where the freshly baked croissants are devoured with coffee and shelves laden with loaves are ready to grab and go.

South Yarra’s Ned’s Bake is a day-through-night bakery where the French and Italian-style loaves hot from the oven are doing their best to bring bread back onto the agenda of southside tables.

HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT PIZZA TOO

MORNING

The very best way to start the day has to be with Paul Wilson’s bacon and egg roll.

They say don’t shop on an empty stomach, and at the Prahran Market’s Wilson & Market, smoky chipotle relish and sharp cheddar cheese that sandwich a free-range egg and thick-cut house-smoked bacon means you won’t have to.

Fans of Bomba’s sticky rich Pedro Ximenez-braised ox cheek are in for an AM treat at Jesse Gerner’s newly revamped Park Street in Carlton North. For it’s here, on a piping hot waffle base
that same decadent meat is served with a gooey-yolked fried egg and cavolo nero, for a winning way to break the fast.

Simpler pleasures are on offer at new CBD toast and espresso bar Kings and Knaves. A coffee and a slice of Noisette bakery bread with a hit of lemon curd is the quick and easy CBD early start that proves the simple things are often best.

The Wilson & Market breakfast roll at Prahran Market.

Over in Glen Waverley, the White Mojo team have added an innovative toast bar to their new day-through-night cafe.

Honey-drizzled smoked eel butter sprinkled with Himalayan salt is as exotic as it is alluring, while a fresh strawberry, granola and vanilla ricotta on brioche is a triumph for the toast or cereal indecisive.

No umming and ahhing when it comes to Sloane Ranger in Cremorne, for when there’s toffee apple crumpets on a menu resistance is futile.

And the world-famous croissants at Collingwood’s Lune really are worth the time in the queue that’s a given — though the smart (and organised) have booked one of the coveted Lune Lab spots, where a changing three-course menu of experimental croissants: a classic, a savoury, and a sweet, are sensations impossible to beat.

Fresh strawberry, granola and vanilla ricotta on brioche at White Mojo Glen Waverley.

NOON

Lunchtime toasties have never looked — or tasted — better.

In North Fitzroy, grab Aphro and Wolf’s toasted take on a classic Reuben and wander up St George’s Rd to Edinburgh Gardens and take your sandwich snack in the spring sun.

Having graduated from their food truck to North Melbourne bricks and mortar, Toasta & Co is turning out a terrific range of crusty-crusted numbers at their daytime cafe. The mac-and-cheese-filled Mack, piled high with caramelised onions, is pro-level carb-loading.

At Kelso’s up the Abbotsford end of Johnston St their grilled cheese is a heart-starting wonder of mozzarella, tasty cheddar, gruyere and parmesan that’s oozy/crunchy goodness on its own but can be amped with extras including bacon, pastrami, pickles and jalapeños.

Vacation Coffee in the CBD is the latest pastel-coloured addition to the Kael and Matt Sahely’s cafe clan (that includes Barry, Touchwood, Bawa) and here they’re turning out a good looking line in hefty toasted sandwiches filled with Meatsmith meat — the wagyu pastrami is a standout.

The ham and cheese toastie at Hector’s Deli is a top-shelf sandwich.

With a pedigree that includes time in kitchens including Stokehouse and Attica, you’d expect the sandos at Hector’s Deli in Richmond to be pretty top shelf — and they are. Think ham and cheese but made with thin slices of mortadella and fat hunks of mozzarella and provolone, or breaded chicken with crunchy lettuce for the win.

Fitzroy’s long-loved Rustica has a new Rialto outpost, where city suits grab and go toasties, including the smoked chicken and melted brie crowd fave, while the team at Empire have reinvented the steak sanga for a new generation, with the new Chapel St store pumping out The Lot — a porterhouse, egg, cheese, onion, etc, etc — that nods to the sandwiches of chippers
of days past but with today’s focus on ingredients.

And in the city, cult pita peddler Miznon has arrived to “make the perfect blend of ingredients in a pocket”. Founded by Israeli celeb chef Eyal Shani, traditional falafel pita is the baseline that quickly heads into meaty territory — sour cream-sauced steak, lamb rib stew, even a wagyu burger with a fried egg.

NIGHT

At Fitzroy’s Napier Quarter you’ll find a thick piece of crunchy crusted light rye that’s toasted, topped with a fanned boiled egg and generously draped with meaty Cuca anchovies. It’s the salty, creamy, crunchy winning partner to a crisp riesling at this fab neighbourhood wine bar.

At Richmond’s equally excellent new-wave pub revival Union House (see review), they’re serving up elegant smoked eel toasted finger sandwiches that prove a perfect pair to a pint of local craft brew.

On Fitzroy’s Gertude St, puffy white bread gets the adult tick of approval at Cutler & Co’s reinstated front bar, where it sandwiches crunchy abalone and lightly dressed cabbage to swipe through sticky katsu sauce. Also don’t miss the grilled flatbread that’s served with a garden of herbs, ricotta and dots of sweet black garlic.

The fried mozzarella sandwich at Basta. Picture: Rebecca Michael

Up the road at Basta, there’s only three words you need to say: “mozzarella in carrozza.” Once you do, shortly after you’ll find a crumbed and fried cheese and ham sandwich in front of you and thoughts of diets behind you.

Over the river, Nick Stanton puts Moreton Bay bug tail through deftly battered salt-and-pepper paces before sandwiching it with punchy tartare in a soft white roll at Ramblr. It’s every good reason to eat on Chapel St, while millennials have a fine wine time around the corner at Neptune, smashing away spicy njudua sausage and scamorza cheese jaffles — because why wouldn’t you?

And though it’s called the Bad Love Club, there’s lots of good love in the air at this new addition to Footscray’s fab food scene — by day it’s coffee and jaffles, by night it’s booze and baked goodies.

And if you need something at 2am? The baccala and charred leek sloppy joe at the Grossi family’s new CBD laneway bar Arlechin will make you see the light (in the dead of night), while at the newly opened Butcher’s Diner — that’s open 24 hours daily — there is no wrong their blood sausage and devilled egg bun can’t right.

The salt and pepper bug sandwich at Ramblr in South Yarra.