Sydney’s cafe scene continues to surge in 2022. But as it evolves, we’re noticing some new venues don’t fit into a classic “cafe” mould – so, this year we’re bringing bakeries and casual eateries into our round up of the best cafe openings of the year so far.

There are little holes in the wall devoted simply to offering great coffee, a cafe with banging focaccia that’ll transport you to Italy and a bakery from an Iggy’s alumnus that’s changing the game on the lower north shore. Here are our picks for the best cafes, bakeries and casual eateries that have opened in Sydney so far this year.

AP Bakery, Surry Hills
We’re just going to come out and say it: AP Bakery is outstanding. We love it. The bakery and cafe resides on the rooftop of Paramount House Hotel, and the lush space is not just an urban oasis amid the city hustle, it’s also a hotbed of deliciousness. Standouts include almost everything, but we go back for the bread (the bread!), the buttery croissants, the Aleppo pepper-and-asiago-cheese scroll, toasties and pies. It’s run by an all-star line-up: – Russell Beard (owner and founder of Reuben Hills and Paramount Coffee Project), Mat Lindsay (owner and chef at Poly and Ester; and co-owner of Shwarmama), Ping Jin Ng (owner and founder of Golden Age Cinema & Bar and Paramount House Hotel) and head baker Dougal Muffet (ex-Ester) – and they’ve just opened a Newtown venue too, which we wholeheartedly endorse. Fact: Sydney is a better place with AP Bakery.

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Coffee Supreme, Brookvale
Kiwi roaster Coffee Supreme was one of the earliest specialty roasters in Melbourne, and its Brisbane facility has been around since 2014. But its Brookvale cafe and roastery is the company’s first bricks-and-mortar space in New South Wales – and it was well worth the 20-year wait. Set inside a dream warehouse conversion, it’s where you’ll find all of Supreme’s blends and single origin coffees brewing under one big roof. Plus, a menu of brunch classics (think bagels and BAE rolls) and choice toasties filled with bolognaise and three cheeses, or chicken and taragon. This place is also a one-stop shop selling every bit of kit required to take your home-brew game from average to supreme.

Fiore Bread, McMahons Point
Fiore co-owner and lone baker Alberto Dal Bosco has some serious flour power on his hands. Before this, he was making cracking croissants at Penny Fours, superb sourdough at Iggy’s and primo pizza at Love Supreme, where he met Fiore co-owner (and partner) Samantha Dean. All that experience comes together at this tiny McMahons Point bakery, which has the spirit of an Italian alimentari, a little grocer where you can grab house-baked sourdough, pantry staples and even a few hundred grams of salumi – fresh off the slicer – to take away. Also, Mecca coffee and elemental sandwiches starting at $6, with fillings like mortadella and Italian cheese; tomato, bocconcini and basil; or eggplant roasted in the bread oven.

Genovese Coffee House, Alexandria
Alexandria might seem like an odd first-cafe location for a 50-year-old Melbourne roasting company, but once you step inside the airy warehouse on Lawrence Street you’ll see that space is what owner Adam Genovese really needed to share his family’s love of Italian cafe culture. At one end there’s an espresso bar, like those you’d find in Rome, where you can read the paper and sip on $2 espressos and be out of the door in a dash. At the other, there’s ’70s-style wooden tables and chairs like you’d find in an old-school trattoria, but instead here you’re snacking on a house-roasted porchetta roll that’s like devouring a roast sandwiched in a bun. What really hits on a rainy Sunday morning is a pillow-soft bombolone delivered to your table on a doily-topped silver platter. It may be a busy industrial suburb outside, but in here it’s a Roman holiday.

Honey & Walnut Patisserie, Dulwich Hill
Slicing into the thick-crusted spanakopita – a swirl of potato, spinach and feta – at Honey & Walnut in Dulwich Hill is satisfying stuff. It’s one of the new patisserie’s secret weapons – hot lunches lovingly made by the owners’ mums that are filling, comforting and made from family recipes. That includes their beef and lamb sausage rolls, moussaka and pastitsio (Greek beef pasta bake). But to saunter out of a bakery with just savoury items is a big mistake, huge. Because the European-style patisserie has glass cabinets packed with a rainbow of cakes, from strawberry-topped black forest gateau to delicate, creamy mille-feuille and dense fig, honey and walnut cheesecake. Our advice? Ask for a selection and take a seat at one of the marble tables indoors to savour every one.

Ickle Coffee, Kinsgrove
Ickle Coffee is a delightful burst of colour on Kingsgrove’s rather drab high street. Step inside the pastel space for one of the best cups of coffee you’ll find this side of the Princes Highway. Ickle started out a coffee roaster (it roasts all its own beans in Alexandria), and owner Rowena Chansiri’s struggle to find good coffee in the area during the pandemic led her to open a cafe to serve the needs of locals. And coffee is absolutely front and centre here. Chansiri is an expert. She’ll happily guide you through what beans will go best with your favourite coffee, flavour profiles and what will work best with your home coffee equipment. Or, just let the in-house baristas do the hard yards and settle for some quiet time in the quirky space. While Ickle is so coffee-centric it didn’t even apply to council to serve its own food, you can get pastries from Tuga and gluten-free fare from Little Secrets Bakehouse. While Chansiri may have craved the cafes of Surry Hills and the inner west during lockdown, we can bet punters in those areas will now make return visits to her own creation.

Junior Specialty Coffee, Crows Nest
Ask Parramatta locals their favourite coffee joint and one name is likely to come up time and time again: Circa Espresso. Now, the good people of Crows Nest can get a taste of Circa via Junior Specialty Coffee, a small-but-mighty coffee bar opened by the same team. It’s serving Circa’s outstanding house-roasted coffee, in espresso, filter, cold-brew and pour-over formats. And as well as fuelling up on caffeine, there’s a tight menu of food that owner Aykut Sayan says you can “enjoy every day”, by Reko Styman, the chef who helped open Circa more than a decade ago. While you can load up on three-cheese and ham toasties and bagels with Wagyu, Junior is another cafe putting coffee above all else, in an approachable way – and definitely warrants return visits.

Only Coffee Project, Crows Nest
No chai lattes, and definitely no decaf. Samuel Lee and Quinton Ng are so committed to their schtick, they’ve given their new specialty coffee nook a name that says it all. But they didn’t stop there – the espresso machine sits at the entrance to the shop like a shrine to the bean. You can sit beside it and ponder your excellent brew with a smooth soundtrack emanating from the cafe’s in-built Transparent Speaker. Along with Primary and Market Lane, this is currently the only place in Australia you’ll find Sey Coffee, a Brooklyn, New York-based roastery considered one of the US’s best. Try it in filter format or grab a bag of whole beans to take home. Just be warned – this stuff comes with a hefty price tag.

Two Good Co Cafe, Darlinghurst
We were already enamoured by the amazing work Two Good Co does to support women at risk of domestic violence and homelessness, most notably its buy-one-give-one meal model. Now the social enterprise has opened its first cafe – a striking bronze-trimmed beauty inside a sandstone heritage-listed former church on Liverpool Street – now Yirranma Place, a new hub founded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation, which works to break cycles of disadvantage. The kitchen is run by Heather Cook, who continues Two Good’s legacy of working with some of the world’s most renowned chefs, and the staff are made up of graduates of Two Good Co’s Work Work program. Alongside cafe staples, the chefs will create monthly specials, and it kicked off with Three Blue Ducks’ Darren Robertson. Come for the oozie cauliflower-cheese toastie, stay for the lovely surrounds, and leave feeling like you’re helping Two Good Co do its wonderful work.

Honourable mention
Sandy’s, Avalon
Sandy’s opened towards the end of 2021, just missing the cut-off for our end-of-year best-ofs. But it deserves a look-in for its fresh and tasty sandwiches by two hospo guns – Andy Emerson, who co-founded beloved Rushcutters Bay diner Acme, and Jesse McTavish, who opened (and has since sold) hugely popular Melbourne cafe Kettle Black and was head chef at North Bondi Fish. The two are also behind Bar Elvina, which sits just upstairs, and has become a favourite haunt for northern beaches locals. Rainy days call for ham and cheese toasties with a zingy pickle, while big appetites would do well to order the Schnitty Sandy, which heaves with chicken schnitzel, chipotle onion jam and Caesar dressing. It’s a more-than-welcome addition to the neighbourhood, and yet another signifier of Sydney’s sandwich renaissance.

@a.p.bread
@coffee_supreme_brookvale
@fiorebread
@genovesecoffeehouse
@honeyandwalnutpatisserie
@icklecoffee
@juniorspecialtycoffee
@onlycoffeeproject
@twogoodco
@sandysavalon

This article was published on July 5, 2022, and may not reflect venues that have opened since publication.