Australia: Melbourne: bakeries

Drawing up my personal list of Melbourne’s ‘top 10’ bakeries was a tough job. Not because ten great places are hard to find, but because there are now so many bakeries in the metropolis which deserve to be included – bakeries which are turning out bread and cakes which are noteworthy by any standard. I’ve tried to make the task easier by excluding everything outside the metropolitan Melbourne area (so no Irrewarra or La Madre), and anything essentially ‘ethnic’ will have to wait for the ‘Melbourne Foodie’ list (sorry, Balha’s Pastry).

I then decided that, as I’d written about and recommended Phillipa’s, d chirico and Loafer elsewhere on this site, I could afford to leave them off this list – not because they didn’t deserve inclusion, but because they were already up there in the posh seats. But I still couldn’t whittle it down to ten; and so what I’m now able to give you, not in any particular order but all unmissable, is my baker’s dozen of Melbourne’s finest, not-to-be-missed bakeries.

n.b. Many, many Australian businesses still don’t have even the most basic web page. Go figure.

1. Knead
396 Burwood Road
Hawthorn 3122 VIC
Telephone: (03) 9819 5883
Try their ‘pinolate’ pine nut cookies, tarte au sucre (sugar-and-cream-filled brioche), gluten-free chocolate brownies and their seeded and sprouted grain breads.
www.kneadbakers.com.au

2. Natural Tucker
809 Nicholson St
Carlton North 3054 VIC
Telephone: (03) 9380 4293
Melbourne’s oldest traditional sourdough bakery, the website says, owned now by John and Jan Bryers but started in 1984 by John Downes on the site of one of Melbourne’s oldest, turn of the (19th/20th) century, bakeries. So many other great bakers in Melbourne can trace their careers back to time spent at Natural Tucker. Try their sourdough loaves, pies, organic Anzac cookies, sourdough croissants.
www.naturaltuckerbakery.com.au

3. Let Them Eat Cake
147-149 Cecil Street
South Melbourne 3205 VIC
Telephone: (03) 9686 0077
No wonder their website describes Christopher Montebello as their “Artist and Pastry Chef”. There’s something of the exclusive fashion boutique about this utterly beguiling shop. This isn’t a bread shop, it’s where you come for perhaps the most creative, original, and occasionally madcap petit fours, cake making and cake decorating in the whole of Victoria.
www.letthemeatcake.com.au

4. Aviv Cakes & Bagels
412 Glen Huntly Rd
Elsternwick 3185 VIC
Telephone: (03) 9528 6627
Apparently, ‘Aviv’ is Hebrew for Springtime. Quite simply, the best bagels in Melbourne, if not Australia; doughnuts and almond scrolls, cheese, apple or apricot danish, and at the end of the week (Thu/Fri/Sat), challah.

5. Brunetti
194-204 Faraday Street
Carlton 3053 VIC
Telephone: (03) 9347 2801
A Carlton icon. Patron Giorgio Angelé originally came to Australia as a pastry chef with the 1956 Italian Olympic team, returning later as a migrant, and acquired Brunetti in 1991. Excels at all the things you’d expect – cannoli, rum baba, panzerotti (filled pastries), bocconcini di nonno (flourless almond biscuits with an amarena cherry centre).
Also at: 214 Flinders Lane
Melbourne 3000 VIC
Telephone: (03) 9663 8085
and: 1-3 Prospect Hill Road
Camberwell 3124 VIC
Telephone: (03) 9882 3100
www.brunetti.com.au

6. Firebrand Sourdough Bakery
69 Glen Eira Rd
Ripponlea 3185 VIC
Telephone: (03) 9523 0061
There’s an ‘Italian’ bread style popular in Australia we don’t see in the UK, the ‘casalinga’ (lit: housewife). Made here in a 1930’s wood-fired oven, using a wholewheat leaven, white flour, water and sea salt, hand-shaped, risen in canvas cloths and baked on the oven floor; or buy their walnut bread – white flour, biodynamic wholewheat flour, organic rye flour, wholewheat leaven, water, and sea salt, mixed with top quality Californian walnuts.
www.firebrandsourdough.com

7. Dench
109 Scotchmer Street
Fitzroy North 3068 VIC
Telephone: (03) 94863554
There are some terrific loaves being made here – potato bread, walnut, apricot & honey loaf, beer bread, raisin loaf; on the sweet side, don’t miss local favourites like their friands; and most of all, gingerbread cats, sold to benefit the Whittlesea Vet Clinic, which provides free care for animal victims of bush fires.
www.denchbakers.com.au

8. Sugardough Panificio & Patisserie
163 Lygon St
Brunswick East 3057 VIC
Telephone: (03) 9380 4060
There’s something ineffably sweet and irresistible about this shop which struck us the moment we looked in the front window. Maybe it was the striped awning, maybe the cosy, almost domestic interior – but really, it was the obvious love, skill and attention to detail which had gone into everything they had on sale. As another reviewer commented, it looks and smells just like grandma’s kitchen. The best bomboloni in town; we went in for a bread roll and came out with one of everything.

9. Babka
358 Brunswick St
Fitzroy 3065 VIC
Telephone: (03) 9416 0091
Most of what’s baked here fits in with the east European air (isn’t ‘Babka’ Russian for Grandma ?) Sunflower and rye loaves, baked cheesecake and a highly recommended lemon tart. Can get very busy, and we hear that service can suffer at those times.

10. Laurent Boulangerie Patisserie
306 Little Collins Street
Melbourne 3000 VIC
Telephone: (03) 9654 1011
Sourdough olive bread, rye loaves, baguettes and epi, pain de mie; macarons and meringues. And numerous branches; Laurent is also remarkable for having maintained quality while expanding the business to over a dozen locations.
www.laurent.com.au

11. Brioche by Philip
208 Commercial Rd
Prahran 3181 VIC
Telephone: (03) 95251966
Run by Philip Chiang, their eponymous brioche can be found with interesting flavour combinations, such as fig, walnut, and blue cheese. In the 2010 Foodies’ Guide To Melbourne, their sourdough baguette was named ‘best bread’, bringing together a full-flavoured moist crumb with a crispy crust. And in a way, that’s what Philip is best at – the fusion of different styles, trends and flavours. Must be seen.

12. Fatto a Mano
228 Gertrude Street
Fitzroy 3065 VIC
Telephone: (03) 9417 5998
Means ‘made by hand’. Well, it would be, wouldn’t it. Still using the leaven handed on by their predecessors on this site, the much-loved Gertrude St Bakery. Pumpkin loaf, focaccia, or for your takeaway lunch, try either the eggplant (aubergine) or potato and olive pizza.

13. Dolcetti
223 Victoria St
West Melbourne 3003 VIC
Telephone: (03) 9328 1688
Marianna Di Bartolo was brought up on her mother’s Sicilian cooking, and it shows. Lemon-spiked ricotta cassateddi, panna cotta tarts, almond or pistachio biscotti, chocolate, prune & grappa cake – and some amazingly good nougat. George Biron, from Sunnybrae, clearly approves – and if George likes it, that’s good enough for me.

Tags: bakeries, bakery, baking, bread, Melbourne, Travel

Australia: Melbourne: Loafer Bread

I took these photos when Loafer was owned and run by brothers Georg and Antoine von Baich and their family, two Canadians who were such a vital part of good baking in Melbourne during their years there.

Though they’ve now moved to Europe to pursue new ambitions, I understand that Loafer continues to produce some excellent bread and cakes, under its new owner, Andrea Brabazon, and it remains on my ‘must visit’ list whenever I’m in Melbourne. The shop has a wonderful sense of light and space, which I hope these images capture.

[Show as slideshow]

Loafer Bread
146 Scotchmer Street
North Fitzroy 3068 VIC
Telephone: (03) 9489 0766

Tags: bakery, baking, bread, Melbourne, photos, Travel

Wild Fermentation

Not a baking book, per se, but one which I’ve found interesting and thought-provoking enough to want to see it included here, and to encourage you to look at and hopefully buy.

The chapters most immediately relevant to a baker are those on breads & pancakes, and on fermented grain “porridges”. In the former, the basic sourdough starter recipe suggests using potato or pasta cooking water and possibly some organic grapes or berries to kick start the process, and asks us to cover the open bowl with something porous like cheesecloth, and the following bread recipe encourages experimentation, with its use of leftover grains and a variety of liquids, including stock, beer or sour milk, and we are urged to allow as long as it takes for the dough to rise.

There are also recipes for an onion-caraway rye bread, an Afghan flatbread and the sprouted-grain Essene bread, amongst others, but the book is primarily a call for us to be more aware of the ubiquity of fermented foods in all their forms, and most of all, it is its author’s personal story of a love affair with fermentation and its perceived health benefits.

Given that you can’t spend an evening in front of the television in the UK without being bombarded with adverts extolling the benefits of “good” micro-organisms in commercially-available yoghurts, it’s perhaps surprising that “artisanal” fermentation is still in its infancy here; and surely any reaction against the bland flavours of processed foods should wholeheartedly embrace the stinky-zingy-tangy palate of fermented flavours, so many of which we could cultivate in our own homes.

I’d never assert that any one book contained all the answers, but at least this book isn’t afraid to ask us questions, about how we eat and how we react to now-unfamiliar food tastes and smells, which our ancestors would almost certainly have been familiar with. So much more than a bread book, this paperback will also guide you through fermenting vegetables and beans, dairy products and more; the section on “country” wines, made from fruits and vegetables, reminded me of the knockout potions my grandfather used to brew from his Buckinghamshire garden, drinks so strong that my Aunt Joan still calls them “idiot’s brew”.

This book clearly grew from the author confronting a health crisis in his own life, and from his need to acquire a new focus and meaning, and along the way he has clearly created a happy synthesis of where he came from, where he is now and where he is heading. It’s an unusual book, a kind book, and an affirming book. For anyone who ever looks inward, and contemplates their own place in the bigger scheme of things, it’s a rewarding book.

Tags: baking, books, bread, breadmaking, recommended

Australia: Melbourne: The Green Grocer

above, a rosemary-topped focaccia straight out of the oven and left to cool on the balcony, at The Green Grocer

On past trips to Melbourne, Dan’s been delighted to hold bread making classes and other events at The Green Grocer, an outstanding organic cafe, food and wine retailer and cookery school in North Fitzroy, in the heart of the ‘good bread belt’ – Dench Bakers, Loafer Bread and Natural Tucker are all just around the corner, and if you need some written inspiration, then Books for Cooks, that unequalled paragon amongst foodie bookstore, is just a short tram ride away. Even the Piedimonte’s supermarket on the corner sells a terrific pane di rosetta.

dough for the Mill Loaf, resting at The Green Grocer

Classes at The Green Grocer have their own rhythm and charm, taking place in a fully-equipped kitchen above the cafe, the separate ‘wine room’ next door with its cool and breezy balcony overlooking the bustle of Scotchmer Street and St George’s Road providing a charming opportunity to unwind afterwards with a glass of wine or a bottle of organic Mountain Goat Steam Ale brewed just down the road in Richmond, and chat more informally with the class members.

More suited to a shorter evening class than an all-day event, Dan’s classes here have concentrated on dealing with and explaining some of the more complicated ideas from The Handmade Loaf and The Cook’s Book, along with basic techniques for baking good open-textured naturally fermented and yeasted breads at home. He’s talked about how Australian flours differ from those widely available in the UK, France or Italy, for example, and how best to use them to make outstandingly good bread, and one popular feature has been to lead the class through all the stages of making the Mill Loaf (from The Handmade Loaf), using 3 different flours (baker’s white, wholewheat and rye) from Four Leaf Milling in Tarlee, South Australia, and an ‘overnight’ method where you make the dough the night before, stick it in the refrigerator, take it out the following day and bake it when it’s puffed up and lively.

the baked Mill Loaves, left to cool out on the balcony at The Green Grocer

At these classes, Dan has also made the focaccia from The Cook’s Book. This is a good example of an impossibly sloppy, sticky dough that turns into something malleable and easy to shape, all due to the quantity of bubbles forming inside the dough – gently stretched and folded, until full of holes and ready to be shaped. The underlying concept is to mix and move the dough along, through the different stages, only when you can observe the changes that tell you it’s ready. Dough watching rather than clock watching, and realising that that you have much more time to do other things when you make bread this way. Finally, the loaves are baked using a baking stone in The Green Grocer’s large gas-fired ovens.

To compress the whole process into a single evening’s class, Dan presents doughs made at different times during the preceding day, so that the class can see all the stages from unmixed flour to fully-baked loaf, and then breads baked before the class are enjoyed with a glass of wine, so that once the class is finished, everyone can taste and talk about the end results.

It would be unfair to end this article without mentioning the cafe and shop at The Green Grocer once more. I’ve always found it a delightful and informal place to eat really good food, and would recommend you to visit their website and check out the Menu, which changes with the seasons, and the wine list. Brunch items such as eggs with sourdough toast, porridge with fruit, nuts and seeds, and fresh juices are served all day, along with a selection of salads and hot lunch dishes, or you can choose something from the bakery counter to enjoy with one of their organic fair trade coffees or range of more than a dozen types of tea and herbal infusion. The shop has the variety of organic fresh produce which the name might lead you to expect, along with ‘larder essentials’ (most of them made on the premises), convenient meat, cheese and dairy products, and their range of ‘slowfoodfast’ and freezer products, if you’re looking for a take-home meal.