Brasserie Bread Cafe

If you want to go straight to the source of great baking, then Brasserie Bread’s cafe is where it’s at. The culmination of what Tony Papas and Michael Klausen started when they began baking together back in 1982 at Bayswater Brasserie, the café is housed in the same warehouse as their current wholesale bakery HQ.

It doesn’t get any fresher than this. The cafe itself occupies the front section of the warehouse, facing onto a fairly bland strip of Botany Road, but step inside and you’ll find a wonderland of rising bread, rainbow eclairs and artisan-crafted sourdough. With a bread and pastry counter at one end and the cafe service counter at the other, this high ceilinged, wooden floored, communal tabled space feels like a wholesome, warm and welcoming barn. There’s even a ‘breaducation’ room for bread-making workshops and school excursions.

Order a breakfast-basket of breads and pastries to try what these guys are best known for (served with Jammery preserves), or peruse the range of filled sandwiches and toasties on offer. Coffee is by Allpress (the coffee of Brasserie founder Tony Papas) and you can buy bags to take home down at the bread/retail counter. Eggs are organic, butter is cultured and all the bread is made just on the other side of the wall.

In addition to the freshest bread around, you get a show with your meal here, because set into the walls – running the length of the cafe – are windows through to the baking warehouse. You can spy on dough being weighed out, focaccias resting or the Easter frenzy of the best hot cross buns in town.

It’s the best thing since sliced bread.