To discover some of the best bakeries in Sydney, take a stroll from Surry Hills to the city’s inner west on my inner-city bakery crawl.
One of the things I love most about Sydney is the melting pot of cultures that influence our food. From fine dining to takeaway and bakeries to breakfasts, we can eat our way around the world without leaving home. My food-loving friend Errol has created his personal ‘inner-city bakery crawl’ and a stroll with him inspired me to create this list of some of Sydney’s best bakeries – and baked goods – some with a delicious Asian twist. It’s in walking order, so if you fancy a 7km (4½ mile) stroll, you can take the full tour. Otherwise just hit a few – and remember to start early, as the best treats sell out fast at these popular bakeries.
Little River
Little River is the Surry Hills bakery by ex-Tetsuya’s chef Josh Raine. Bakers Hannah and Joe Gray make the most of slow-cooked meat from Josh’s neighbouring restaurant, 40Res, for pastries like flaky wagyu steak bake and confit duck pie. The well-seasoned kangaroo Scotch egg is a signature menu item, while seasonal sweet treats include the likes of rhubarb and orange custard pain Suisse. Good coffee and sandwiches too.
A.P. House
Arrive early to nab a table (and avoid queues) on the rooftop terrace at the HQ of iconic A.P. Bakery. Their focaccie are legendary – and the Szechuan lamb may be the best. Oily, Chinese-spiced tender chunks of lamb and caramelised onion on brilliant, blistered focaccia, topped with toasty sesame seeds and green onions. Super caramelised orange and pink peppercorn kouign-amann with a nice lick of salt is pretty special too.
Buttered
The heritage-listed old Tooth’s brewery in Chippendale is home to a bakery all about Korean salt bread. While a toasted plain roll is the best way to discover this crisp-based brioche-like bun, you can have them filled with everything from spicy buldak chicken to prawn croquette and potato egg salad. For me it’s all about the butter tteok – canelé-like rice cakes with a chewy centre that you buy by the bucket and I could eat by the handful!
Khanom House
Khanom means ‘sweet treat’ in Thai, and this bright turquoise corner terrace on a leafy back street is best known for its pandan-coloured Thai chiffon cakes, like the one topped with rich coconut cream and shreds of fresh young coconut. Baker Yeen Veerasenee’s hallmark is low sweetness – so even signatures like the Ukrainian-inspired seven-layer honey cake with pandan cream and roasted shredded coconut stay beautifully balanced.
Pantry Story
At this tiny Parramatta Road bakery, Indonesian-born baker Tiara Sucipto blends classical viennoiserie with Asian flavours, and queueing guests browse the large central table display rather than read a menu. The rendang pie packed with fall-apart tender beef has just the right touch of spice; the wobbly panna cotta capybara is cute, and I adore the intensely green, crumbly, coconutty pandan cookies with a chewy mochi heart.
Hearthe
Since his days at Claude’s, through the Black Star years, Christopher Thé has always had a flair for presenting classics with an inspired twist. At Hearthe in Stanmore he’s reinventing homely bread and butter pudding by turning day-old bread and pastries (including pain au chocolat) into a super-crisp, slightly bitter caramelised pudding served with the lightest lemon myrtle-scented vanilla crème anglaise. His olive-studded fougasse is a winner too.
Published 12 Oct 2026
Viennoiserie – French for ‘in the style of Vienna’ – refers to yeasted, butter-rich pastries.
There are two types:
The term viennoiserie nods to Austrian baker August Zang, whose Paris bakery helped popularise Viennese-style baking in France in the 19th century.
A kouign-amann (pronounced ‘kween ah-mahn’) is a caramelised butter pastry from Brittany in north-western France. Its name is Breton for ‘butter cake’.
Layers of yeasted dough, butter and sugar are baked into a crisp, toffee-like crust with a soft, flaky centre.
Its invention is credited to baker Yves-René Scordia, in the fishing port of Douarnenez, around 1860.
Despite its name – meaning ‘Swiss bread’ in French – pain Suisse is a French viennoiserie that’s rarely seen in Switzerland.
It’s a rectangle of brioche or croissant dough folded around vanilla pastry cream, often with chocolate chips or fruit. Exactly how it got its name remains a mystery, even in France.
Salt bread – shio pan in Japanese, sogeum-ppang in Korean – is a buttery roll made by wrapping dough around a log of butter. The butter melts as it bakes, leaving a tender, hollow centre and a crisp, golden base, finished with flaky salt.
It originated in Japan’s Ehime Prefecture around 2014 and became a craze in South Korea’s cafe culture.
Focaccia and fougasse are Mediterranean cousins. Both names come from the Latin panis focacius, a flatbread baked on the hearth (‘focus’ is the Latin word for hearth).
Italian focaccia is typically thick, dimpled and oil-rich. Provençal fougasse is thinner and crustier, slashed into a leaf or ladder shape that bakes extra crisp, and often studded with olives.
