Three To Try: New Bakeries Putting Creative Spins on the Classics

This year has already seen the rise of exceptional new bakeries such as [Hot-Listed] Dua and Caroline Springs Filipino fave Pecks Road ’s city store. And there’s more to come with John Demetrios’s Butter Day Bakes and the new South Yarra Baker Bleu opening this spring.

In the past two months, we’ve seen exciting new bakeries open with inventive spins on classics such as ube Swiss rolls, pistachio and strawberry croissant wheels and a petit gateaux Mont Blanc riff. Here are three new bakeries worth visiting.

Halaya, CBD

This Spring Street spot is from pastry chef Laurice Fajardo – who trained in Manila before moving to Melbourne, and also runs Filipino cottage bakery Pastry Plus – and designer-turned-hospitality-operator Elbert Estampador. The duo previously operated Filipino cafe Ceree in the same space, before closing to reopen with a sharper vision and a bigger focus on ube baked goods.

Halaya is named for ube halaya – a dessert made by mashing the purple yam that’s often used as a component in other sweets. It’s a staple of the menu and “a nod to Filipino desserts and that nostalgic feeling of home”, Fajardo says.

The Filipino staple is found across the bakery in ube Swiss rolls, ube Basque cheesecake and ube cinnamon scrolls (filled with halaya and slathered in a deep purple-coloured ube icing).

Calle, Northcote

In late 2022, Calle’s croissant wheels took off online. The pastries – inspired by the Supremes at New York’s Lafayette Grand Cafe and Bakery – see croissant dough rolled like a spring onion pancake and filled with different flavours of cream or custard, then crowned with a topping to match. In July, the Carlton North bakery finally opened a second store , and brought its viral pastries to Northcote.

The family-run spots are the work of Chloe Phung, who oversees marketing, and her dad, head baker Huey Phung, who has more than 25 years of experience, including a decade-long stint at Breadtop.

He makes two different croissant wheels every month, available on Friday, Saturday and Sunday only. For August, you’ll find one filled with chocolate and another with house-made strawberry coulis and pistachio custard cream. Calle also has danishes, plain croissants and Northcote-exclusive cinnamon scrolls.

Sucre du Jour, CBD

Eigen Ting, former pastry chef at L’Hotel Gitan , and his partner Josephin Tan, are behind Sucre du Jour. The patisserie first opened in Camberwell in 2020, and quickly became popular for technical French desserts that incorporate Southeast and East Asian flavours.

In July, they followed it up with a city store , where you’ll find the same matcha canelés, Ipoh white coffee-flavoured opera cakes and croissants filled with pandan cream. But at the new shop, there’s more focus on the petit gateaux.

There are around eight of the highly technical small cakes on offer at any one time. While most change seasonally, including a current creation, a riff on a Mont Blanc , which sees an almond sponge layered with chestnut cream, and topped with a citrussy oolong tea mousse that hides a layer of caramel. But two mainstays have been around since day one: the macadamia and cereal tart, and the limon (a pastry shell filled with candied lemon marmalade, yuzu curd and whipped lime Chantilly).

Additional reporting by Pauline de Leon, Sebastian Pasinetti and Haymun Win.