Agnes Bakery

At the height of Brisbane’s lockdown, Agnes in flipped into a woodfire bakery punching out sourdoughs and fancy pastries. The pop-up proved so successful; co-owners Bianca Marchi, Tyron Simon, Frank Li and chef Ben Williamson took on a permanent location in 2021, on the corners of James and Harcourt streets in Fortitude Valley.

An old Queenslander corner shop has been given a smart coat of white paint on the outside, and a brick floor inside. Otherwise, it’s a marble counter, a coffee window on the Harcourt Street side, some movable timber bakery shelves, and that’s pretty much it.

The simple treatment means that outside your attention is drawn to the lines of doughnuts, pastries and sweets that fill the window. Inside, an enormous four-tonne, locally made Beech oven bakes 24 loaves of bread at a time. The oven’s design was overseen by Williamson, who wanted something that could switch from baking breads overnight to pastries in the morning.

Expect five different types of sourdough (seeded, malted, smoked potato, fruit loaf and gluten-free), Basque burnt cheesecake, rotating kouign-amann, a range of danishes (including a savoury number with toum and potato), breakfast rolls (a smoked potato bun with bacon, egg and German relish), chocolate tarts, and cinnamon and jam doughnuts (plus a rotating special doughnut).