The Round-up: Get Your Carb Fix From One Of Brisbane’s Best Bakeries

Sprout Artisan Bakery, Fortitude Valley: This beloved wholesaler-turned-bakery-superstar made our hearts skip a beat when it opened a pop-up outlet on James Street in 2020, but it made us fall head over heels when it secured a permanent space in 2021. Now a local fave, Sprout sells a mix of sweet and savoury delicacies, including custard tarts, flaky croissants, bostocks, cardamom scrolls, savoury breakfast danishes and cinnamon buns, as well as a scrumptious-sounding croissant toastie. Oh, and don’t forget the rustic loaves – we reckon they’re an essential item.

Darvella Patisserie, Bulimba: Born as a savvy lockdown pivot, Darvella Patisserie evolved into a fully fledged concept (and one of Brisbane’s best bakeries) in 2021. The Bulimba-based bakery boasts chic Swiss influences and an upmarket feel, with an offering that includes traditional croissants, doughnuts, breads, savoury items, an assortment of signature baby cakes and Swiss-chocolate-infused treats.

Superthing, West End: In early 2020, NYC Bagel Deli’s Eddy Tice and Ania Kutek opened their own pink-hued croissanterie Superthing on Montague Road in West End, setting the standard for visually arresting interiors and well as mouth-watering treats. This isn’t your typical bakery, here all of the pastries based on croissant dough, from the plain, almond and ham, cheese and bechamel croissants to the cruffins, savoury monkey-bread muffins and the cinnamon and orange sugar morning buns with vanilla custard.

Cordelia Sourdough Bakehouse, South Brisbane: The Superthing time made more moves in 2022 with Cordelia Sourdough Bakehouse. This striking bakery-cafe hybrid is all about showcasing the wonderful complexity of sourdough. It’s doing this by making ans serving an assortment of loaves made from a variety of starters to make European-style rye loaves, caramelised onion sourdough and kakadu-plum-infused breads. The offering also features elevated toasties, burgers made using cultured milk buns, hand-rolled bagels and flaky croissants.

Danny’s Bread, Teneriffe: If you consider yourself well-versed in Brisbane’s cafe scene, then you’d have noticed many of the city’s top-flight nosheries repping Danny’s Bread. Daniel Mikus is a guru when it comes to baked goods, honing his skills at some of the country’s best bakeries before striking out on his own. Danny’s Bread takes an near-scientific approach to baking, mixing organic flour from Gunnedah, salt from the Murray River basin and high-quality water before playing with fermentation and natural bacteria to create its signature sourdough.

Doughcraft, Albion: Nestled in the heart of Craft’d Grounds is a multi-faceted bakery and deli that takes things up a notch when it comes to crave-worthy carbs. Doughcraft (the brainchild of a group of chefs and bakers) dispenses a jaw-dropping array of European-style baked goods, cheese and charcuterie. The range includes (but isn’t limited to) doughnuts, breads, focaccia buns, sandwiches, lasagna and pasta. Stand-out selections include bomboloni crowned in a peak of silky Italian-style meringue, panino casa with Le Conquérant camembert, Sardinian-style sausage, local honey and butter, nduja-infused focaccia buns, and smoked Tasmanian salmon, creme fraiche, spinach and crispy capers smushed between squid-ink buns.

The Whisk Fine Patisserie, Brisbane City and Mount Gravatt: What do you get when one of Australia’s best competitive pastry chefs opens his own patisserie? You get The Whisk – the brainchild of acclaimed baking maestro Justin Yu. Justin works solo to pump out hundreds of pastries every week – think Fresh danishes and croissants made with high-quality Belgian butter and French flour, blueberry, strawberry and passionfruit almond tarts, macadamia brownies, and macarons. In 2022 the team opened a pastry kitchen at Inter/Section in The City, slinging Nutella croissants and hot-dog danishes.

Flour & Chocolate, Morningside and Northgate: It’s not uncommon to see a line of pastry hunters snaking out of Flour & Chocolate’s Morningside patisserie, which is why all die-hard bakery fiends celebrated when Flour & Chocolate opened a second (much larger) locale in Northgate. Now, folks can get their fix of this acclaimed outfit’s artisan breads, cakes, tarts, slices, brownies, sausage rolls and more.

Jocelyn’s Provisions, Fortitude Valley, Camp Hill, Albion Brisbane City: A name synonymous with decadent cakes and perfect pastries, Jocelyn’s Provisions is one of Brisbane’s most iconic purveyors of breads and baked goods, using top-notch ingredients and traditional recipes to create its esteemed (and extremely popular) array of goods. From the signature bar cakes and flourless chocolate cakes to its chewy brownies, heavenly roulades and buttery tarts, there’s something here to tantalise everyone’s tastebuds.

Lisboa Caffe, South Brisbane: While you won’t find any croissants or danishes here, this little bakery and cafe has a specialty to absolutely must try. Lisboa Caffe – one of Brisbane’s preeminent proponents of Portuguese pastéis de nata – is renowned across Brisbane for its custard-filled tarts. Here, you can get boxes of traditional, Nutella custard, goats cheese with walnut and honey, and chicken-and-herb tarts, as well as mini tarts, almond tarts and sausage rolls.

Chouquette, New Farm: This long-running French boulangerie and patisserie is a popular spot for Brisbane folk (some travelling from the other side of town) to nab everything from buttery croissants and freshly baked baguettes to delightful coffee. If you seek Parisian-style treats, you’ll assuredly fall head over heels for Chouquette’s macarons, almond croissants, mille-feuille, eclairs and bostocks.

Brewbakers, Albion: If you’re a sourdough purist, the crusty loaves at Brewbakers will be sure to activate your almonds. The team here use organic locally sourced flour from Kialla Mills and long-held artisanal practices (natural leavening/fermenting and poaching) to craft a range of quality loaves, bagels, pastries, cakes and more. The starters for Brewbakers breads go back as far as the 1990s, which means this crew has been nailing it for more than two decades.

Cake & Bake, Newstead: The name Jocelyn Hancock is one that has garnered respect city wide. As the original owner of Jocelyn’s Provisions, Jocelyn helped build the brand into the pastry powerhouse it is today. In 2015, the doyenne of cakes struck out on her own with a new concept called Cake & Bake, which originally operated in West End before relocating to Newstead this year. Here, folks can gawk at Jocelyn’s range of cakes, slices, savouries and tarts, including lemon-souffle cheesecakes, peanut-butter brownies, caramel and praline tarts and slow-cooked beef pies.

Bella & Tortie, Grange: ‘Canelés, cakes and contemporary bakes’ is what’s advertised on the Instagram page of Grange’s Bella & Tortie and, while the offering is as advertised, the statement undersells the quality of the goods made by interior-designer-turned-pastry-chef Suzi Unwin and her team. Everything here, from the buttery tarts, covetable cakes and drool-worthy doughnuts to the savoury pies (filled with all sorts of interesting ingredients), sausage rolls and quiches, are sensational. Don’t forget about the killer collection of crispy canelés – it’s hard to visit Bella & Tortie without buying one!

King Street Bakery, Bowen Hills: When it comes to French cuisine, the team at Montrachet deliver some of Brisbane’s best. It stands to reason, then, that any attempt at French-style baking would result in similarly phenomenal results. It seems our hypothesis was correct – King Street Bakery by Montrachet makes artisan breads and hand made viennoiserie, tartlets, and cakes that will make you quiver in ecstatic delight. Even the savoury goods are a treat – freshly made sandwiches using King Street Bakery’s house-made breads are available alongside gourmet pies and sausage rolls.

I Heart Brownies, Bowen Hills and Brisbane City: Sometimes, it’s better to have a specialty than to be a jack of all trades. This is the mantra of the I Heart Brownies crew, who have dedicated countless hours towards the pursuit of the perfect brownie. For purely research purposes, we’ve chomped on dozens of I Heart Brownies treats (which come in flavours such as peanut butter, salted caramel, raspberry, Turkish delight and double choc) and we can verify that these might very well be the best brownies in town. We might need to eat a few more, you know, to be completely certain.

Banneton Bakery, Woolloongabba, Camp Hill and Ashgrove: Another outfit using old-school techniques and baking methods, Banneton’s age-old principles help it produce some of the most uncompromisingly authentic goods. Wholesome ingredients are transformed into breads, viennoiseries, savouries and patisseries without the use of artificial improvers or additives, so if you’re after a no-fuss croissant or guilt-free galettes, seek out one of Banneton’s three bricks-and-mortar locations or two market pop-ups.

Miettes Boulangerie Patisserie, Graceville: Over the river in Graceville sits a charming bakery that is renowned for its incredible selection of sweet and savoury goods. Miettes and its head baker Greg Willis whip up loaves upon loaves of artisanal breads, from your regular white sourdough and ciabatta loaf to haloumi and mint sourdough, triple-seeded rye and cornbread. What’s more, the shelves also boast batches of fresh doughnuts, croissants, breakfast brioche and limited-edition themed goodies.

Honourable mentions: Brisbane’s bakery scene is flush with scores of sensational venues – it’s incredibly hard to whittle down the list to a select few! We’re cheating by also including some of our other favourites in this category. Other bakeries worth checking out include Alphabet Cafe in West End, Gerbino’s in Ashgrove, Reno Fine Patisserie in Eight Mile Plains, Le Caprice PatisserieinBulimba, MICA Express in The City, The Baker’s Arms in Woolloongabba, Kürtősh in West End, La Vosh Patisserie in Red Hill, Banette in Rosalie and Le Boulangerie Amour Fou in Salisbury.

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