Australia’s best bakeries are renowned for their delicious pastries and breads, as well as the delicious goodies that are always being baked out the back; sourdough bread, vanilla slices, croissants, and every other delight you can imagine.
Australians have a long love affair with their bakeries – you might be stopping for a meat pie while somebody else is anticipating the joy of tucking into a berry tart, chocolate éclair or spinach, and fetta pastie. Let’s take a look at some of our picks for Australia’s best bakeries and we dare you to walk past any of these without purchasing at least two things!
Beechworth Bakery, Albury
The Beechworth Bakery is something of an institution in Albury; famous for the Ned Kelly pie (a hearty meat pie topped with bacon, cheese, and a whole egg!)
The two-storey building was built in 1857 and over the years has been a shoe shop, dining furniture shop, and a pastry shop. Beechworth Bakery’s current managing director, Marty Matasoni, started working after school at the bakery in the1990s when he was 13, peeling onions, cracking eggs, stacking the drinks fridge, and putting stock away. We love a bakery with history!
There’s a fabulous display of cakes, slices, pastries and pies, and more. Baked fresh using the finest ingredients and traditional recipes, Beechworth Bakery’s huge range of hand-made products proudly retain their old-world charm.
Gumnut Patisserie, Berrima
The family-fun patisserie has been in business for more than 20 years and is renowned for its beautiful cakes and fine pastries. The chicken and leek pie is simply divine and we also love the Cornish pasties; minced meat with veggies or the spinach and feta. Delicious!
How could you resist one of their melt-in-your-mouth chocolate eclairs, mud cakes, custard tarts and vanilla slices? Grab yourself a lamb and rosemary pie and wander across the road to the picturesque park or even better, go a little further and check out the great shopping!
Bourke St Bakery, Surry Hills
It’s not unusual to see people queuing outside Bourke St Bakery at lunchtime, no doubt salivating over their decadent offerings. There’s a great selection of quiches, including the bacon, gruyere, and leek quiche, which is divine. The muffins are to die for, including the chocolate and raspberry, and pear and rhubarb.
We love the chicken slider; chicken with red pepper pesto, pickled fennel, rocket & mayo, as well as the carrot and walnut cake which is simply delicious and you can easily convince yourself that it’s very healthy!
Tivoli Road Bakery, South Yarra
Just a stone’s throw from Toorak Road in South Yarra, Tivoli Road Bakery offers a fabulous selection of breads, sweet and savoury pastries, granola, pies, sausage rolls, and sandwiches.
Tivoli Road bakery is famous for its sourdough and pies, along with the beautifully crafted pastries and cakes – baked fresh each morning. There’s a great range of bread, from soy and linseed and multigrain to sourdoughs, fruit, olive, and spelt.
They also have stone-ground sourdough with a caramelised crust, delicious morning buns, croissants, and fruit Danish. Some of their pastries are almost too beautiful to eat!
Lune Croissanterie, Melbourne
Next up on the list of Australia’s best bakeries is Lune Croissanterie, which is something of a Melbourne institution. This bakery is famous for what we are told are its “perfect croissants.” This place is definitely on our bucket list! Their popular French croissant is prepared over three days so we’re guessing it’s divine. It’s impossible to look at their website without craving a croissant. The business describes itself as: “Lune is not a shop, nor is it a factory. It is a celebration of the creation, complexity, and ultimate enjoyment of a croissant.”
You can also try the Persian Love Cake, Pain au Chocolat, cheese and Vegemite escargot, and their famous Lemon Curd Cruffin.
Bread in Common, Fremantle
Bread in Common is more than just a bakery. Run by the team behind Perth’s popular Little Creatures, it’s located in Fremantle’s historic West End. Bread in Common specialises in hand-shaped, preservative-free, daily baked breads, made from organic flours, salt, spices, and fruit, and a slow sourdough process. Their hand-built, wood-fired bread ovens, (named Hansel and Gretel) are the heart and soul of the bakery and restaurant.
The team prides itself on choosing responsibly sourced seafood and farming practices to reduce our environmental impact and create honest, ethical menus.
The Rolling Pin Bakery, Magill, SA
The Rolling Pin is owned by two young brothers, one of whom received culinary training in traditional pastry-making in France. The bakery manages a fantastic combination of classic French recipes mixed with modern Australian flavours to create a range of incredible sweet treats. The traditional chocolate tart is finished with honeycomb and house-made golden syrup; another favourite is the Turkish delight éclairs, which we can’t wait to taste!
Aux Fines Bouches, Burleigh Heads
Aux Fines Bouches is well known for its decadent display cabinet lined with pastries, cakes, whole cakes, and tarts. This is truly a hidden gem you must visit when you’re on the beautiful Gold Coast.
Originally from the North of France, Chef Pâtissier Richard Le Deunff spent years honing his skills at prestigious palace hotels in Lausanne, Switzerland before migrating to Australia.
Manubread, Invermay
Hand-shaped, artisan loaves, puffs, and brioche are made the traditional French way at Manubread in Tasmania. Their breads begin with a sourdough starter, a culture of bacterium and yeast growing and living off flour, water, and oxygen. It takes a number of hours for these flavours to develop in bread, one reason why a sourdough loaf takes so long to rise and bake.
Manubread’s pastries are made in the traditional French style and include a range of French pastries, brioche, and puff pastries. Wonderful!
Lady Hester, Hobart
Lady Hester is famous for its slow-proved sourdough doughnuts with Persian-inspired fillings including orange curd and cardamom, or vanilla cream with pistachio.
Sisters Loren and Erin started their baking business in 2014 with a cake stall at a few markets on the East Coast of Tasmania, and a sourdough starter. They started experimenting with baking sweets and sourdough bread until they combined both passions and made a batch of sourdough donuts. And the rest, as “they” say, is history! Lady Hester open their commercial kitchen window in the Hobart CBD every Friday from 10 am and they sell out very quickly! Could you resist a donut with rhubarb and rose jam? Nope, didn’t think so.
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