Great Bakeries You Must Visit In Melbourne
Melbourne is known for the variety and great quality of bakeries that it has. The humble act of making bread has expanded to encompass a great many other things, with bakeries having become more than just places to buy your bread. These are some great bakeries you must visit in Melbourne.
Tivoli Road Bakery
A highly regarded outfit in Melbourne, Tivoli Road caters to bread lovers and sweet lovers. Sourdough is the specialty here, though other kinds of bread include spelt, soy, linseed, multigrain, olive, and Turkish bread. There are various kinds of croissants on offer as well, like plain, almond, or chocolate. You can add jam to each. Additional sweets include fruit danishes (pear and apple), doughnuts with rotating flavours like lemon custard, rhubarb, and caramel, and chunky brownies.
The lunch menu includes thick-cut sandwiches of soy and linseed bread which can be toasted, pies, and sausage rolls. Seating is difficult to find here as it’s very popular, especially during lunchtime. It’s also big during easter time due to their hot cross buns.
Dench Bakers
This Melbourne bakery is best known for its organic sourdough, considered one of the best in the city. They make 13 different types of sourdough here including house stone, superseed, walnut, apricot, rosemerry, and olive loaves. Sweet treats include canele, danishes, gluten-free biscuits, fruit pastries, and gluten-free cakes. The actual baking occurs offsite now due to increased demand, and this has allowed for an increase in the size of the onsite cafe.
An onsite kitchen makes breakfast and lunch options along with take-home meals.
Lune Croissanterie
Naturally, croissants are the main draw here. They are twice-baked and served fresh out of the oven. They are made using the traditional method; a three-day process. They are considered to be very high standard croissants. In fact, The New York Times named them the best croissants in the world. Here in Australia! Not France! That’s wild. The praise seems warranted. Their mathematic formula results in crisp and golden croissants, ones with visible layers of delicate pastry.
The queues are enormous from early on in the morning, and most of the pastries have flown out by noon. It’s located in a warehouse space, at the centre of which is the Lune lab, which is climate controlled at 18 degrees. This is how each croissant comes out perfectly.
You can go to the counter and order a pastry that’s delivered to you from the oven, and sit and eat on the bench space that’s here, or you can pre-pay online and sit at a stool at the lab. Here you can enjoy a three-course pastry meal, including two items not on the normal menu, and unlimited coffee.
Baker D Chirico
Considered of the best bakeries in Melbourne, Baker D Chirico is known for its fermented whole wheat bread, easter fruit buns, snazzy pinnies, and nougat. The interior is really something to look at, with undulating slats modelled after a breadbasket holding serving as shelves. The selection on offer is extensive, with sourdough loaves, savoury pastries, and beef pies among many other things.
Brunetti
Brunetti’s is a Melbourne institution. It acts as a cafe, piazza, and restaurant. There’s really no better place to go to try Italian pasticceria. There are entire cabinets filled with cakes, macrons, and creamy domes. Being Italian, the best choices are the traditional biscotti, cannoli, and amaretti. And the coffee, of course.
Noisette
Founded by a fifth-generation baker, Noisette makes tempting French fancies, offering a taste of provincial life in Melbourne. They do petite sweets, croissants, macrons, and baguettes along with brioche, multigrain, rye, and wholemeal loaves. Additional deserts include handmade chocolates and flavoured marshmallows.
Rustica sourdough
Located in the culinary heart of Fitzroy and established in 2012, everything is homemade at this bakery/cafe. It is the place to go in Melbourne if you’re into artisan bread. They offer a unique selection of sourdough bread like quinoa soy and linseed, apricot date and walnut, and vine fruit and rosemary, fig and fennel, fruit tin and fruit bun, and olive with fresh basil. There’s also organic white sourdough, seedy wholewheat, and light rye.
They also have a select range of semi-sourdough bread, that uses a contemporary take on the traditional sourdough process. These include Parisian Baguette, Ciabatta, Corn, and Roasted Pumpkin. Their specialty is brioche bread.
It’s always brunch time at Rustica, with an all-day brunch menu featuring eggs benedict with lobster and charcoal brioche and French toasted hot cross buns.
They also make tarts, galettes, and croissants, may of which have fillings like raspberry and lychee. They support sustainable farming practices and source fresh and local produce. Said local produce comes from Spade and Barrow, Laucke flour, and the meat comes from local butchers Largo. Everything from the savoury galettes to the espresso tarts is prepared, baked, or cooked on site. Each location has it’s own unique flair, with the menus reflecting that.
Agathe Patisserie
They make very unique croissants at Agathe Patisserie. Flavours include matcha, pistachio and almond, turmeric and caraway seed, and a croissant coloured with squid ink and flavoured with nigella seed – dubbed The Black Pearl. The process of making them is also unique. The croissants are left out for 24 hours, allowing the dough to rest, the yeast to ferment, and the butter to develop a cultured butter flavour.
Other pastries include mille-feuille, that comes in flavours like matcha and raspberry. They are flaky, buttery delights.
Babka
A Melbourne bakery with Eastern European influences, Babka is constantly full. They make traditional borscht, cream cheese blintzes, house-made pies, sandwiches, and poached eggs. Sweets include egg brioche or challah, hot cross buns, shoo fly buns, and lemon tarts. The latter are extremely zingy and creamy, with the bruleed top adding a toffee-like texture. The signature chocolate babka comes highly recommended. It’s a brioche base layered with chocolate.
It’s a cosy setup with friendly staff.
