What’s With All the Bread, Sydney?

Seriously, what’s with all the bread, Sydney? Of course, there are no complaints here. Fresh, buttered, toasted or jaffled – any way you put it, it’s good. And luckily we’re swimming in excellent bakeries – meaning excellent places for sandwiches. But in the last two weeks alone, four new venues have joined our streets – and they’re all dedicated to baked goods.

There have been a few more openings in 2025 so far – Khanom House, Age 3, Petit Loulou, AP Bread & Wine, The Grumpy Baker & Bar – and there are certainly more to come.

Here are the four new bakeries and sandwich shops we’re getting around – and what to order when you’re there.

Fiore Sandwich, CBD

The Fiore Bread team is cherished by the McMahons Point community. It’s known for dark, chewy house-baked loaves of sourdough, whopping sangas on slabs of focaccia, and a homely line-up of sweets. Last week, Fiore crossed the bridge, giving city slickers a better angle at everything they’re doing.

Martin Place kiosk Fiore Sandwich is slicker than its bakery sibling, with an electric fit-out by Make Haus. “Retro Italian” was the brief: big blue tiles clash (in a good way) with a marble-topped bench, a funky cabinet that makes an excellent argument for lino and a scattering of small tables.

All the bread’s being made on the north side, using the very same sustainable, old-world flour from Gunnedah’s Wholegrain Milling. But all the grab’n’go sandwiches will be CBD exclusives – on whopping slices of soft sanga loaf.

There are seven to choose from: five meaty options, plus a vego and vegan. The sauces, pickles and meats are all house-made, and there are plenty of sweet options and a pair of batch-brew taps too.

What to order? The polpette, where saucy pork meatballs join pesto and radicchio.

Berta’s Deli, Marrickville

This newbie for the inner west is owned and run by William Tooley, whose plans for a small reno quickly turned into a full-scale interior demo. So Berta’s is tardy, but happy to be here.

The brief is classic deli sandwiches – cos “everyone loves a sandwich”, Tooley says – with small touches to rev them up a bit. The Morty sees thinly sliced mortadella wedged between slices of Turkish bread with rocket, stracciatella, pickled onions and fresh pistachio pesto. It goes hard on all the right things: flavour, texture, sauce.

A sausage-and-egg muffin is heightened with a herby special sauce, there’s a range of tartines, and a spicy hash brown for good measure.

What to order? The Fennel Two-Ways, where a tangle of roasted and pickled fennel joins grape compote, smoked mozzarella, radicchio and hot honey.

AP Quay, Circular Quay

If you know AP, you know that head baker Dougal Muffet is a bread lord. For the team’s seventh venue, it’s all about the rotisserie. And the just-baked bread. And the “best ever” rotisserie drip potatoes. And the egg muffins. Scratch that: it’s about all of it.

Head to the Quay Quarter digs for crunchy, white rolls – straight out of an in-store oven – stuffed with spatchcock straight from the spit. The barbeque-spiced Game Farm birds get comfy with brown butter gravy, stuffing, cheese and aioli. There’s garlicky Whole Beast porchetta too, revved up with fennel seeds, lemon and garlic, with crackling and salsa verde in a sliced-open focaccia.

It’s serious stuff. “We’re just trying to turbocharge: the buns for the rolls are coming out of the oven at 10.30,” Muffet says. “Everything’s crispy, everything’s hot, everything’s just at its peak. That’s the real joy of being a baker, you’re in there and eating everything when it’s just out of the oven at its optimal prime. We’re trying to provide that experience to the general public.”

What to order? The cheesy Tokyo-style egg muffin, add fried mortadella.

Buttered, Chippendale

“Thousand-layer” tissue bread is the breakout star at Buttered. It’s a Korean play on a cube croissant, where laminated croissant dough is jammed into a cube-shaped baking pan. Once it’s baked, each layer can be removed one at a time – satisfying and delicious.

It’s super shareable, and has a nice fluffy centre. But there’s Korean salt bread, too, which food writer Howard Chen called a “buttery sensation”. It’s a hybrid of a croissant and a dinner roll, with a soft, rich mouthfeel. The dough is cold-fermented overnight, then as it bakes, the outer layer browns into a dark crust and the log of butter within melts, soaking into the bread and crisping up the bottom.

There are sandwiches too, and a sweet line-up of cakes. All of it’s in a big warehouse, with a marble counter in the middle.

What to order? The original tissue bread, warmed up.

Plus, there’s more coming. Kosta’s is soon to open an outpost on a Greek bent in Martin Place, and Bondi’s S’Wich is heading to Redfern’s Wunderlich Lane later this month.