Six To Try: New Bakeries for Everything From Matcha Maritozzi to Pumpkin Pie

Beurre, Canterbury

Zahara Valibhoy has been making custom cakes for more than a decade, but she never thought her cottage bakery would turn into a retail store. “When this spot on Maling Road became available, it felt like something clicked,” she tells Broadsheet. Beurre opened at the end of August with butter-yellow tiles and a handpainted dessert mural depicting tarts, ribbons and cutesy florals.

You’ll find pandan sponge, hazelnut raspberry cake and salted caramel choux, as well as morning buns and cheesymite scrolls made with laminated dough, giving them a soft, airy and croissant-like texture. But Valibhoy’s personal favourite is the Nutella choux with a salted chocolate crumble on the inside that she describes as “a little surprise when you bite into it”.

Cherry Pie, Docklands

Almost everyone orders a slice of Cherry Pie ’s pumpkin pie, founder Tarius McArthur tells Broadsheet. “Australians say they’ve always heard of but never tried it,” she adds.

McArthur was raised in Detroit and says when she moved to Australia, she noticed a lot of Aussies were curious about sweet American pies. She started selling pies at farmers’ markets in Melbourne and Geelong, and opened a bricks-and-mortar shop in Docklands two weeks ago. The all-American menu includes apple and rhubarb, blueberry, maple pecan, and signature cherry pies, all encased in buttery shortcrust pastry and made using techniques McArthur learnt from her mother and grandmother. There are also classic cinnamon rolls and house-made cherry lemonade.

Puffy’s Bakehouse, CBD

Japanese cafe Tomo’s Little Collins is known for hearty donburi, chilli prawn scrambles and chicken cordon bleu sandos. But when owner Eric Yuen closes Tomo’s doors for the day, his daughter Erica Yuen flips the space into a dessert house named Puffy’s, and opens them again. Delicate cakes and desserts including strawberry shortcake and tiramisu are always on the menu, but Erica likes to “keep things exciting” with weekly specials, she tells Broadsheet. Recently, she featured an Earl Grey blueberry financier and a coffee mandarin petit gateau with a pillowy chocolate sponge, cappuccino ganache and navel orange confit. Puffy’s also has matcha and coffee, including an iced Earl Grey matcha and iced banana bread latte, which has banana puree, brown sugar and cinnamon.

Elka Bakery, Heidelberg

After selling Sourdough Kitchen in June, Michael Younan says he wanted to “use [his] learnings and build something from the ground up”. Elka is your classic neighbourhood bakery. There are cinnamon scrolls and orange cardamom buns, but the main focus here is the bread. The “tangy” – as Younan describes it – country loaf is made from four flours: rye, spelt, roller-milled white wheat and biodynamic stone-milled red Zanzibar. The sourdough is made from a combination of heritage and stone-milled red Zanzibar flour that Younan says results in a soft, chewy interior and a dark, crusty exterior.

Luna Bakery, Carlton

Chef couple Daniele and Stella Crisante dreamt of opening their own bakery for years. This winter they finally bit the bullet, opening Luna Bakery (named for their three-year-old daughter) in Carlton. Daniele says they wanted to “create a unique combination of baked goods” that nodded to both his hometown of Abruzzo in Italy and Stella’s South Korean heritage. But the influence is much broader, with items including a twice-baked spanakopita croissant and a pecan pie danish. A customer favourite is the huge strawberry matcha maritozzo (Italian cream bun) of sweet matcha custard in a soft brioche bun. And there are fluffy focaccia pizzas, with toppings such as fungi or potato and shallot available from 11am daily.

Dulce Bakehouse, Southbank

Dulce, a Latin American bakery known for its killer vanilla slice, has long been a favourite in Delahey and Essendon. Now you can find its vanilla slice, which is taken to the next level thanks to a layer of dulce de leche, in Southbank too. The third location , which opened on Clarendon Street in August, is also home to Dulce’s alfajores (dulce de leche sandwich cookies), palmeritas (puff pastry hearts with caramelised sugar), filled Argentinian croissants and savoury empanadas, which are baked fresh daily with fillings including beef, cheese, spinach and ricotta, or chicken and mushroom.