In Sydney, a new bakery or bakery-cafe has opened every two weeks, on average, since June – and 2024 could prove the year of the bakery. Specials and signature products, viral cookie croissant hybrids among them, sell out within minutes. And in the midst of a cost of living crisis, hundreds of people queue on Sunday morning for pastries costing upwards of $13 a pop.

These are not the humble neighbourhood bakeries of the past, serving simple sliced loaves of white bread and gelatinous yellow “snot blocks”, aka vanilla slice. Rather, at St Leonards bakery-cafe Moon Phase (formerly known as Layers), the signature chocolate bar croissant is a new-age take on a pain au chocolat, a buttery baton of swirling laminated chocolate pastry, looking like a piece of edible art.

At $10 it is more expensive than the average, but it regularly sells out at the weekend. As with the miso-glazed Portuguese tarts at Tenacious Bakehouse in Darlinghurst, or the swirls of pistachio and white chocolate croissant at Lode Pies in Surry Hills, it’s a small taste of luxury: made with the same evident expertise, care and quality produce one might expect of a dish at a fine dining restaurant.

But unlike at a great restaurant, this pastry is eaten out of a small white box on the drive home, and disappears within a few mouthfuls. At a time when Australian households face an almost 9 per cent drop in real household disposable income per capita, it’s a trade off many are willing to make.

“Not everyone has the time or the means to go out for dinner, but you can still feel like you’re treating yourself when you go to a bakery,” says Tom Mitchell, co-founder of Shadow Baking in Darlinghurst.

Bakeries aren’t immune to the impacts of inflation and slowed consumer spending, yet customers continue to queue at bakeries such as Self Raised Bread Shoppe in Carlton and Rollers Bakehouse in Manly.

In some cases, as with Goodwood Bakeshop in Marrickville, picking up a loaf of heritage black barley porridge bread and a little treat from the seasonal pastry menu (maybe a fig danish with ricotta custard?) has become a weekly ritual.

At Pantry Story in Stanmore, crowds are enticed by TikTok videos showing brilliantly green pandan cookies slowly pulling apart to reveal a chewy mochi (pounded rice cake) interior.

“I think value is definitely the driving point,” says Hussein Rachid, co-owner of Self Raised Bread Shoppe.

“There’s a lot of perceived value in a pastry. You can see someone made it from scratch on site.”

The standard of bakery goods has steadily risen over the past three decades, evolving from pastel-coloured meringues and frosted finger buns to artisanal products, like croissant-shell custard flan tarts and double baked croissants.

“When I started baking in the early ’00s it was all about Bourke Street Bakery and their soy and linseed sourdough ... it was game-changing,” says Mike Russell, co-founder of Baker Bleu in Double Bay.

The evolution accelerated over the pandemic, when bakeries became essential businesses, baking trends took over social media, and extended lockdowns encouraged trained chefs to turn to baking.

“Lode pushed the game, A.P Bakery pushed the game, and we pushed the game … We work as hard as we can to evolve and tweak our products and make them as elevated as possible,” says Russell.

Now, chefs comprise the bulk of job applications at A.P Bakery, says head baker Dougal Muffet. He can relate – he did a five-year stint as a chef at Chippendale restaurant Ester before making the switch.

“There’s still the traditions and the craftsmanship of [classic] baking … but there’s been a fine-tuning of seasonality, a stronger focus on produce and the introduction of different kitchen techniques,” Muffet says.

A.P Bakery, along with Iggy’s Bread in Bronte and Staple Bread & Necessities in Seaforth, puts a strong emphasis on the provenance of their goods, sourcing wheat from local farmers to mill flour in-house.

Others, like Tuga Pastries (Clovelly, Alexandria) and Darlinghurst bakeries Shadow Baking and Tenacious Bakehouse, focus on innovation, introducing frequent specials to attract social media attention.

Tenacious’ founder and head baker Yeongjin Park takes customer suggestions to develop products never-before-seen in Sydney. His latest creation, the onigiri croissant – a small, triangular croissant with savoury fillings (inspired by viral South Korean cafe Nudake) – sells out in minutes.

“At its core, baking is a science, and it grows and develops differently in every culture,” says Adrien Chrunyk, the French-born founder and head baker at Tonton Bread in Surry Hills.

“Sydney has developed its own cultural twist on bakeries, where the expectation of consistency, quality and creativity is very, very high.

“They’re doing something I’ve never seen before, not even in France.”

Five new classics

There will always be a place for such Australian bakery classics as vanilla slices, meat pies and iced finger buns, but these popular new products have become a staple at artisanal Sydney bakeries.