Best Bakeries in Melbourne
These are the top Melbourne bakeries you must visit!
Bakery goods are highly popular in Melbourne right now. Around Melbourne, new bakeries, pastry shops, and cake stores are springing up. The quality and level of baked goods supplied in stores is steadily improving. That is why we have compiled a list of the greatest bakeries in Melbourne that you must visit if you live in or intend to visit Melbourne.
In This Article
Baker Bleu
Mike Russell was nicknamed “Blue” as a child because of his strawberry-blonde hair. For his bakery, which debuted in January 2017, he recreated the name – albeit in French. Baker Bleu immediately established a reputation for shaping some of Melbourne’s greatest loaves. Russell formerly worked at Baker D Chirico in Melbourne and Iggy’s and Bourke Street Bakery in Sydney. The three establishments are regarded as some of the top bakeries in the country.
Russell and his crew only work with sourdough. Many great restaurants, like Attica, favor bagels, baguettes, white and rye breads that have been fermented for at least 18 hours, resulting in lovely caramel-hued crusts. Ancient grains like spelt, purple wheat, and kamut are featured in rotating specials. The day’s products are stored in freestanding racks, which swiftly empty as folks come in and out to get their daily bread. A small selection of providore goods, such as olive oil, salt, jam, honey, and anchovies, as well as filter coffee, are available.
In 2019, the original Elsternwick premises were replaced by this new 400-square-metre location. The larger room allows the bread to ferment for longer before baking. Russell intends to keep pushing past 18 hours in order to achieve even more flavor depth.
Baker Bleu began as a small Elsternwick boutique in 2016, soon growing to cult status, presently operating out of a spacious Caulfield North bakehouse and supplying a long list of premier restaurants. People come from all around to get their hands on ficelle, French batards, classic challah bread, and fresh bagels at the bakery, which is noted for its fast-selling, queue-worthy loaves. Not to mention the tempting rotating menu of distinctive sweet delicacies, such as spiced apple crostata, golden croissants, and custard-topped fruit brioche buns.
Location: 121 Hawthorn Road, Caulfield North
Monforte Viennoiserie
Monforte Viennoiserie, a little patisserie measuring two meters by five meters, discreetly opened in the middle of 2020. Since then, it’s been a roaring success.
The croissant is one of the vienoisierie family of pastries created using laminated dough. Monforte has a lot of these, as well as pains au chocolat and danishes. However, the menu is dominated by unusual, lesser-known pastries.
Giorgia McAllister Forte, the owner, uses viennoiseries as a jumping-off place for the flavor combinations she wants to attempt and whatever ingredients she’s infatuated with. One with asparagus, goat’s curd, preserved lemon, and hazelnuts, for example, or one with ‘nduja, fried walnuts, and sage. Even the most traditional pastries deviate: there’s a croissant with chocolate instead of gianduja (essentially Nutella), and another with guanciale, parmesan, and thyme instead of ham and cheese.
The leatherwood honey and sea salt croissant, on the other hand, cannot – and must not – be removed from the menu. It’s a monster pastry, covered with a light-reflecting honey glaze and encrusted with fat salt flakes. It’s already a classic. Gluten-free “not viennoiserie” choices like strawberry-yuzu muffins and ginger brownies are also available. There’s also Everyday Coffee batch brew and croissant loyalty cards (remember those?) – your eighth croissant is free.
Oh, and be sure to arrive early. Monforte’s pastries are virtually always sold out.
Location: 585a Canning Street, Carlton North
Tivoli Road Bakery
This hidden treasure of a bakery can be found just off Toorak Road, where it’s been serving up freshly baked treats for almost eight years. It was first opened in 2012 by Frank Camorra as MoVida Bakery, and is now run by the Little Cupcakes team, who are making a variety of breads and stone-ground sourdough with certified organic ingredients. Small Batch coffee is served, and a rotating menu of clever sandwiches has the midday crowd enthralled. There’s also a tempting array of sweet and savory pastries to choose from. It’s nearly impossible to choose between a slice of sugar-dusted apple and rhubarb tart and an oozy jam doughnut, so we recommend getting both.
At Tivoli Road, bread is the primary attraction, with sourdough, spelt, soy, linseed, and multigrain variations to select from. Sweet tooths will be satisfied with croissants (plain, almond, or chocolate, each with optional jam), fruit danishes in both pear and apple kinds, and the cult favorite – round doughnuts with rotating flavors like lemon custard, rhubarb, or salted caramel.
Sandwiches with thick-cut slices of soy and linseed bread are on the lunch menu, and we recommend getting them toasted, especially if it’s the delicious cheese and mush. Savoury pastries like pies and sausage rolls are easy to come by. Small Batch provides the coffee.
Since its inception in 2012, the bakery has passed through a number of hands. It was once part of Frank Camorra’s MoVida business, known as MoVida Bakery, until being taken over by head baker Michael James and his wife Pippa and renamed Tivoli Road Bakery. Little Virtual, the same firm that owns Little Cupcakes, has been running it since November 2018.
Location: 3 Tivoli Road, South Yarra
Candied Bakery
Chef Toula Ploumidis and baker Orlando Artavilla went on a research trip to America after selling Sugardough Panificio and Patisserie in Brunswick East. They returned with the concept for Candied Bakery in Spotswood, which they describe as “an Aussie bakery with a twist.”
The space, which was once a barbershop, has been gutted and refurbished to reflect a contemporary aesthetic, with help from Foolscap Studio on the interior design.
Candied bakes lamingtons, fruit buns, croissants, and cookies (think chocolate and marshmallow with sea salt), as well as organic bread and focaccia slabs.
Soft serve, apple pie shakes (pastry and apples pulverized into a thickshake), and jelly donuts are also available. The team also provides a lentil pie with fresh goats curd and an egg, as well as a bacon pie with handmade ketchup.
A grilled cheese sandwich with a pickled baby carrot on the side “to cut through the fat” and a couple hot buns are also on the menu. Ploumidis and Artavilla are starting over, but they’ve brought their favorite Nutella croissants from Sugardough with them.
Location: 81A Hudsons Road, Spotswood
A1 Bakery
Golden spinach and feta pastries, herb-flecked boat-shaped shanklish pies, and sugary layered baklava are all on the menu. It’s easy to see why A1, a Lebanese bakery and supermarket, has been a Sydney Road favorite for almost two decades when you see the treats on display. From soft souvlaki-style rounds ready to roll to five-inch pita pockets, the ovens here produce a variety of classic Middle Eastern breads. For lunch lovers, however, the homemade grab-and-go alternatives, such as haloumi-stuffed pies and pizzas topped with sujuk, falafel, and labneh, are a must.
Elias Farah, his brother-in-law, Chafic Choueiry, and their wives, Nadia and Noha, founded this Sydney Road fixture in 1992. Since then, A1 Bakery has been a huge success.
Students who are short on finances sat next to groups of elderly Lebanese residents and their grandchildren. Lebanese pizzas, spinach and cheese pies brimming with creamy haloumi, and sweets are served in a lively ambiance with small steel tables and Arabic posters. Everything is of excellent quality and costs little more than a few bucks.
The bakery doubles (or triples) as a cafe and Middle Eastern market, with sumac, pomegranate molasses, rose water, and all the other ingredients you’ll need to make authentic Middle Eastern dishes at home.
Location: 643-645 Sydney Road, Brunswick
Baker D. Chirico
This popular Italian-style bakery, which has three locations and an ever-growing following, is known for its excellent sourdough breads as well as the rows of tantalizing house delicacies calling from its pastry cabinets. If you come in for a loaf of crusty casalinga or to stock up on panino, you’ll find it difficult to leave without a creamy cannoli or a plump bombolone. Baker D. Chirico’s seasonal creations, on the other hand, create quite a stir – just look at the annual lines for its glazed hot cross buns or artisan panettone to see what we mean. The quaint Carlton shopfront, with its stunning timber waves and work by famous March Studio, will appeal to design fans in particular.
Baker (as it is lovingly known by its clients) is readily recognised for its superb packaging, with workers who look like they should be working at Scanlan & Theodore.
Fortunately, the bakery’s aesthetic does not obscure its substance — Melbourne bread does not get much better than this. Nutritionists, food critics, and aficionados flock to the whole-wheat bread; at Easter, the masses demand hot cross buns; and the nougat is so popular that it can now be found at The Essential Ingredient stores. Then there are Chirico’s best-selling cannoli and bombolini, which sell out every day before closing.
The long baking hours afford the occasional treat of a baked-fresh still-warm loaf mid-morning to take with you after you’ve gobbled a raspberry frangipane tart and coffee, with demand this strong – and that’s before considering requests from Melbourne’s greatest restaurants.
Location: 178 Faraday Street, Carlton
