Discover the sweetest bakeries and patisseries across Melbourne and Sydney
A ‘treat yourself’ culture is driving an explosion in bakeries, patisseries and cake shops, and with it a new type of entreprenuer is ripping up the old recipe for success.
Chase the pastry. Chase the cakes. Chase the sugar hit. Queue for an hour to get a just-made pain au chocolat created by a software engineer turned baking perfectionist; drive across town for a smoked pecan and butterscotch tart made by a chef who just sells that one thing. Seek out the Japanese-inspired lamington made from Yuzu curd and toasted meringue before it disappears off the shelves of a tiny store, or enjoy the almost indescribable bliss of biting into a crispy cinnamon croissant scroll.
It seems we’ve all become sugar, butter and carb addicts in the post-pandemic world. The number of bakeries, cake shops, gelaterias and croissanteries have exploded in Sydney in Melbourne as we all seek comfort food. This demand is being met by bakers, patisserie chefs, and even untrained home cooks who perfected their culinary skills during lockdown and decided to follow their passion, open businesses and experiment with new flavours to satisfy our sweet tooth.
“The past few years have been particularly dark, especially with the lockdowns and being away from families and friends, so people are eyeing off the sweeter things in life,” believes Jonathan Camilleri, who opened JC Pâtisserie Boulangerie in Melbourne’s inner-city Abbotsford late last year. The French-trained chef wanted to bring his favourite pastries and baguettes from Paris back with him.
“People are not holding back on treating themselves,” adds Audrey Allard, a few suburbs up the road in Northcote at her Holy Sugar cakery. She has become known for her baked passionfruit tart and a donut made from choux pastry called a French Cruller. “It’s become the new weekend beverage,” Allaes says. “Instead of a drink, everyone is turning to weekend treats and visiting bakeries all over town.”
Ben Milgate, from Sydney’s Humble Bakery, who recently opened a second store near Circular Quay and is looking for a third venue, believes everyone is getting into baked goods because they taste so bloody good. Humble has become famous for its delicious pink-hued iced finger bun with a slice – more like a slab – of butter in the middle. “It’s the greatest indulgence there is,” Milgate says. “People start queuing at 11am at Circular Quay and we are sold out by 1pm. I am really proud of what we produce, from sourdough to cakes, and everything is coming straight out of the oven.”
Another Surry Hills patisserie that has just opened its second store in Sydney’s CBD is Lode Pies & Pastries. Like many of these ventures, it began in lockdown when fine-dining chef Federico Zanellato started making one dish – a French pie called a pithivier – from the degustation menu of his then shuttered restaurant LuMi in Pyrmont. “People kept asking for it and we were selling 300 pies a week at one stage during lockdown so we decided to open a shop,” he tells WISH. Now they create delicious things made out of either croissant dough or puff pastry, and sell out on a regular basis.
“It’s flour and water and lots of butter,” Zanellato says of why people are going mad for his baked goods. “Everything is handmade, and basically putting butter into sweet dough always helps. There is nothing like biting into that crispy layer of pastry. It’s a caramelised addiction of sugar and butter.”
Janelle Barnes, who opened Sandy Bake Shop in Balmain last September, says her customers are often seeking delicious treats that remind them of their childhood. “I do very simple and nostalgic cakes, and I think people are looking for this because they were shut out from their families for a couple of years,” she says. “My cakes bring back food memories of when they were younger.”
Barnes, who has worked in kitchens for her whole career, including at the famous Sydney bakery Flour & Stone, says she’d been making cakes for her friends for years and came across the empty café at the back of the arcade on Darling Street in the middle of 2022. “It is not really the best time to open a shop but I have been talking about it for years so I just decided to bite the bullet,” she explains.
About a kilometre down the road is the very newly opened Home Croissanterie, which as the name suggests, opened as a result of owner Ben Lai making croissants at home. The trained software engineer decided to give pastry a go on the weekends because “sourdough was too mainstream” and then perfected his skills during the pandemic lockdowns in 2020. He took pictures and posted them to Instagram, started selling his creations, and did so for two years while continuing to work full-time.
“When I realised I had a two-month back order, I decided to give up my job and then I baked every day for 18 months,” Lai says. “The dream was always to have a space where people can gather and eat my creations, and so when the opportunity came up in Balmain it was perfect. And honestly the complexity of trying to make the perfect croissant keeps me going. That still keeps me going.”
The self-trained pastry cook believes that people are going slightly crazy for good croissants or cakes or sourdough because there is so much experimentation going on, with artisans in both Sydney and Melbourne coming up with completely different creations using different ingredients.
“In the world of patisserie, it is easy to bring in new flavours and new products,” says pastry chef Christophe Thé, founder of Black Star Pastry and his new venture, Hearthe in Stanmore. “There is a lot of experimentation and energy there among chefs. And for customers, I think it will always be a little indulgence that you can give yourself when you can’t afford new shoes. It is still accessible.”
Thé, who created the Instagram-famous strawberry watermelon cake, is now playing with Australian flavours in his new café after selling his former business to hotelier Louis Li. One new dish he has created is inspired by the paperbark tree, and has the unexpected flavours of eucalyptus caramel and smoked chocolate ganache sandwiched between layers of pastry like a millefeuille.
“The challenge was, could I make a cake look like a piece of paperbark, and what would it taste like and what flavours would go with it? I think when you do great food it does cross the barrier to be more than just food and takes on meaning.”
The use of experimental flavours and local, seasonal produce is what Mat Lindsay, one of the founders of AP Bread in Surry Hills and Newtown, believes is behind the rush on all the good sweet stuff. “Many people are coming to places like Lode and us because they know it is high quality and we use good ingredients,” he says. “It is not just soft white bread, it’s really well-fermented sourdough, so it is not actually that bad for you as long as you don’t eat it every day.”
Dougal Muffet is the man behind the delicious bread and pastries at AP Bread (All Purpose Bread) as he was baking at Lindsay’s other Sydney venues, acclaimed restaurant Ester in Chippendale and bar Poly at the bottom of the Paramount House Hotel. AP Bread is located on the rooftop and somewhat tellingly replaced a gym when it opened last year. The Newtown outlet opened a few months later after they kept selling out of Muffet’s take on bread and pastries.
“The way Dougal makes it is that he bakes it for a bit longer than you may expect, so it is caramelised and dark and a bit gnarly. This means the flavours are a bit more rounded than just being sweet,” explains Lindsay. “When the business started, it was supposed to be beautiful sourdough and baguettes, but just through the way it all happened, the way we were baking during lockdown, it was the croissants and pastries that got everyone’s attention and it has been crazy ever since.”
AP Bread might have become known for its changing, seasonal pastries but there are also stores that are focusing entirely on a single specialty. There is Tokyo Lamington, also in Newtown, and in Thé’s tiny original Black Star Pastry store, where owners Eddie Stewart and Min Chai have perfected one of Australia’s oldest cakes and then experimented with flavours to make them even better.
“I have always had such fond memories of lamingtons because I cooked them with my grandmother, but some people have had bad experiences with them,” says Stewart. “We wanted to take the basic lamington and elevate it with good ingredients and make it as good as it could be.”
The idea for a shop entirely devoted to lamingtons came to the pair when they ran an Australian-style café in Tokyo and started making lamingtons alongside avocado on toast. They did original lamingtons as well as ones with flavours more familiar to their Japanese customers. Stewart and Chai were on the verge of opening a lamington shop in Tokyo when the pandemic hit, so they came home and opened it in Sydney instead. The duo opened their first Melbourne venue in Carlton in 2022.
There is also a business in Melbourne with two locations that just does tarts. Called Tarts Anon, it is the brainchild of Gareth Whitton and his partner, Catherine Way. Whitton was working as head pastry chef at the pop-up Dinner by Heston Blumenthal at Crown Casino before the pandemic hit and he was left unemployed. Stacking supermarket shelves at night, he began baking tarts for himself and for friends out of boredom. It wasn’t long before everyone wanted his chocolate caramel tart.
“Originally it was just a side hustle,” he says. “I had no intention of making into anything other than something to do in the middle of lockdown. But the demand was there and we opened in Cremone and then in Collingwood. The bakery culture has grown significantly in Australia, especially in Melbourne, and now there is real competition between pastry chefs and artisans. I really love it.”
Lode Pies’ Federico Zanellato couldn’t agree more. He went to France last year after being stuck in Australia for the pandemic and ate his way around the best patisseries in Paris, but was ultimately disappointed. “The quality is better in Sydney and Melbourne,” he enthuses. “Both cities are world-class when it comes to fine dining and coffee, and now you can add pastries and bread.”
-
THE BEST NEW BAKERIES, CAKERIES AND PATISSERIES
-
SYDNEY
Sandy Bake Shop, 7/332 Darling Street, Balmain
This cafe at the back of a historic arcade on Darling Street is a hidden treasure full of gorgeous cakes, on the counter and cooling by the window. Founder Janelle Barnes says “I had this vision of a great table in someone’s kitchen where you watch them make cakes for you.” The apple and sage cake is unmissable, as is Nanna Loved a Carrot Cake.
AP Bakery, rooftop of Paramount House Hotel, 80 Commonwealth Street, Surry Hills and 1a Bucknell Street, Newtown
Get in before midday to snaffle the best of the pastries and breads made by Dougal Muffet, who mills his own grains. The almond frangipane, fig and ricotta chantilly cream danish is an example of his seasonal pastries, which change weekly. The baguette is all crunchy, chewy sourdough deliciousness, and the buckwheat pain-au-chocolat will instantly improve your day.
Home Croissanterie, 1/418 Darling Street, Balmain
This croissant shop and café opened in March and attracts a weekend queue of punters eager to grab one of Ben Lai’s creations. Try the potato croissant scroll with extra virgin olive oil and sea salt, or the bacon and maple scroll with redgum-smoked salt. Lai also makes a French pastry, Kouign-amann, from leftover croissant dough and rolls it in sugar that caramelises during cooking.
Lode Pies & Pastries, 487 Crown Street, Surry Hills and Sydney Place, Circular Quay
Federico Zanellato takes pastry to the next level with hand-cut beauties that look almost too good to eat. There’s the pithivier with Emilio’s butchery pork and shiitake mushroom served with chicken and cream gravy, and croissants with seasonal flavours. But we can’t go past the “cinnamon guy” – a hybrid croissant/cinnamon scroll.
Hearthe, 16 Douglas Street, Stanmore
Expect very different indigenous flavours in Christophe Thé’s beautiful sun-filled cafe. The Geraldton wax cheesecake is baked goats curd, desert lime, Geraldton wax jelly bubbles and rose petals. The paperback dacquoise has a eucalyptus caramel and smoked chocolate ganache sandwiched between layers of pastry.
Humble Bakery, 50 Holt Street, Surry Hills and Shop 19, 16-20 Loftus Lane, Sydney CBD
This bakery, from the group behind Sydney restaurants Porteno and Bastardo, does several versions of sourdough and people queue for the focaccia when it comes out of the oven at 11:30am. But it’s the iced finger bun that has become legendary. Also worth checking out are the carrot cake and dense chocolate brownies perfect for afternoon tea.
MELBOURNE
JC Pâtisserie Boulangerie, 17 Henry St, Abbotsford
Jonathan Camilleri returned from working in Paris as a pastry chef and decided to open his first patisserie in what was once two car parks down a laneway off one of Melbourne’s busiest roads. This relatively hidden space with marble benches, a chandelier and beautiful black wrought iron windows is worth hunting down for Camilleri’s take on the opera cake and a Saint Honoré – puff pastry, crème pâtissière and Chantilly cream topped by a caramel-dipped éclair.
Pidapipó Laboratorio, 429-431 Brunswick St, Fitzroy
This gelato and cake laboratory opened last year after the owners of cult gelato makers Pidapipó wanted a space to experiment more with seasonal flavours, make more cakes and release a chocolate line. Check out pistachio Nutella swirl, or peanut butter with malt crumb and caramel chocolate when it comes to the gelato flavours, or the banoffee pie, the Neapolitan bombe Alaska or a mouthwatering take on tiramisu.
Holy Sugar, 236 High Street, Northcote
Ex-Lune Croissanterie baker Audrey Allard kicked off her business in lockdown making boxes of pastries, before opening her cafe. Check out the Basque cheesecake, the chocolate raspberry flourless cake and the vanilla-filled éclair topped with melted chocolate. Allard also makes French Crullers – similar to Spanish churros – that are covered in a brown-buttered glaze and cinnamon sugar. “They go a bit crazy,” she says.
Tokyo Lamington, 258 Elgin Street, Carlton and 277 Australia Street, Newtown, Sydney
This tiny Sydney store, which has just opened its first Melbourne outpost, displays its scrumptious lamingtons on a shelf on the wall like the precious objects they are. There is the original, or the OG – a beautifully light sponge with raspberry jam you can actually taste and vanilla cream, dipped in chocolate and toasted coconut. And you should try the Yuzu: this one has yuzu curd, vanilla sponge and toasted meringue on the outside. Best bet would be to get both.
Tarts Anon, 29A Gwynne Street, Cremorne and 44 Sackville Street, Collingwood (inside Pedla Bike Store)
Home is where the tart is, according to Melbourne’s Tarts Anon, which now has two locations and just does one thing, and they do it very, very well. Go for the chocolate and caramel tart that started it all with pastry chef Gareth Whitton selling it out of his apartment during lockdown, and stay for the passionfruit and ginger tart or the lemon and rhubarb one. If you want to counter the huge sugar hit, they have savoury options such as a cheese and bacon quiche with maple-glazed bacon, leek and almond, topped with a gruyère custard.
Kudo Bakery, 8 Little Collins Street, Melbourne
This tiny bakery at the back of The Windsor Hotel is the brainchild of husband-and-wife chef team Felix Goodwin and Elena Nguyen. It stocks the standard sourdough breads, pastries, croissants and cakes – all gluten free. Nguyen perfected a decent gluten-free sourdough during lockdown, a feat that took many, many attempts. Kudo also does exceptional madeleines and canelés with varying seasonal flavours.
From designing Qantas PJs to French farmhouses, we visit Martin Grant at home in France
The burgeoning cultural capital of Arles is where we find the Melbourne-born fashion creative ahead of a big NGV announcement back at home.
Your 5-star guide to drinking in France’s wine regions
Trusted culinary entrepreneur offers sensational tips for savouring the most celebrated wine country.