The Kudo Founders Open Itera, a 100 Per Cent Gluten-Free Bakery in Brunswick

Anyone after gluten-free baked goods in Melbourne knows about Kudo, the pint-sized CBD bakery where ex-Sunda pastry chef Felix Goodwin and his partner Elena Nguyen have been pumping out coeliac-friendly sourdough and canelés for four years. Now, the couple have launched a full-service bakery in the 300-square-metre former Hard Yakka factory in Brunswick. And this time, they’re going it alone.

While Kudo started out as part of the Hotel Windsor, this is Goodwin and Nguyen’s own operation. The name, shortened from “iteration”, represents the process of constant refinement their recipes go through.

The couple realised “pretty early on” that the 80-square-metre Kudo wasn’t big enough for the offering they wanted to produce. “People ask why we don’t do croissants. We just didn’t have the time and space to dedicate that type of attention to trial and error in the city,” Goodwin says.

At Itera, there’s room for a dine-in cafe menu of gluten-free plates alongside Kudo’s beloved gluten-free bread and sweets. The menu is designed around the rotating loaves on the bakery’s timber shelves: five sourdoughs, a wholemeal option, and a rye that’s either fruit-studded or seeded à la Danishrugbrød.

“We want people to have the opportunity to try our breads without buying a full loaf,” Goodwin says.

Sourdough rarebit is layered with Vegemite-infused butter and a chunky corn-and-gruyere spread that plays on Korean corn cheese. Classic avo toast gets an intense twist with soy-marinated avocado, smoky seaweed mayo and a smattering of furikake piled onto seeded bread. Baguettes are draped with folded eggs, which hide labneh, ’nduja and fermented capsicum.

Elsewhere, a congee pot pie is the bakers’ first foray into laminated pastries. It’s a mashup of Nguyen’s favourite breakfast – congee – with a signature Donovans pie from Goodwin’s time at the St Kilda fine diner. The congee – a blend of Thai sticky rice and Taiwanese short-grain rice cooked in chicken stock with a rich, velouté-like quality from rendered pork lard – is encased in flaky puff pastry brushed with shallot oil. Nguyen says the pastry is their stand-in for a Chinese doughnut, a traditional congee accompaniment.

Head chef Kelvin Ong, former sous-chef at Society and chef de partie at Hazel, has developed a tiger prawn burger that nods to the Cantonese prawn toast found on yum cha carts. He minces two types of prawns into a springy paste with sesame oil, ginger and spring onions. The patty is crumbed, deep-fried and stuffed between brioche buns with wasabi rocket and salted cod roe mayo.

Eight rotating canelé flavours include vanilla and oaked rum, jasmine tea with peach ganache and fresh raspberry, and a pandan and taro number based on a cake Nguyen’s grandmother used to bake for her. Another riffs on banh gan (Vietnamese coconut flan), infused with star anise and topped with a takeaway coffee lid made of chocolate. Nguyen’s corn and parmesan choux, with corn-tea jelly and a parmesan and mozzarella custard in the middle, is available too. 

Ong is also behind a pandan and coconut cake inspired by his mum’s ondeh ondeh (a Malay kueh). There’s also a layered leatherwood honey cake and a crème caramel served with whipped cream. Pair them with specialty drinks like pandan matcha and Vietnamese coconut coffee with young rice foam on top.

Besides its dietary ethos, Kudo’s cosy charm is also on show at Itera. The space is split into three canelé-inspired circles separated by rounded timber shelves, echoing Kudo’s “little nooks of discovery”, Goodwin says.

Doors open into the middle ring, where a split-flap display is mounted above a glass-brick counter, announcing Itera’s rotating menu specials. A 26-seat dining room is fitted out with peg stools from local designer Conrad-S, and a grocery section is stocked with gluten-free pantry staples.

Itera
4A Ballarat Street, Brunswick
No phone

Hours:
Wed to Mon 9am–4pm

@iterabakery