The best bakeries in Melbourne

When a bakery supplies bread to some of Melbourne's best restaurants (think Attica, Cutler and Co and the Carlton Wine Room), you know it must be doing something right. And at Baker Bleu, it seems they really are doing everything just right, nailing everything from the inimitable country wheel and the crusty ficelles to the chewy bagels and savoury olive fougasse. What started as a humble suburban operation back in 2016 has grown into an almost national sensation, with stores popping up across Melbourne and Sydney – and the more bread they make, the more the people want. Queues are a given, as is the fact that many of the items sell out before closing time, but that's all part of the fun: it's like a race to see who can get there in time to snag the last Vegemite and cheese scroll, the final potato and rosemary pizza or the last sourdough chocolate chip cookie. There simply is no denying that Baker Bleu is serving up the best bread in Melbourne. 

Falco Bakery focuses on traditional baking techniques with a few flourishes to keep the product true to its Collingwood home, using locally sourced ingredients with a focus on the seasons. Expect Swedish cardamom buns, vegan chocolate brownies, sourdough English muffins and fresh-baked loaves accompanied by Falco's own coffee, roasted in-house. Those in the lane snaking down Smith Street share a collective understanding that the wait, no matter how long, really is worth it at Falco. Don't miss the sandwiches here either, which are made using thick slices of housemade bread with the perfect crust.

Tearing into the crunchy caramel crust of Wild Life Bakery's sourdough feels like holy communion with carbs. Toasties arrive thick as a forehead and big as a face, while old-school salad sambos achieve new crush status when folded into chewy sourdough baguettes, lifted with the zip of pickled carrot and tempered with soft avo and roast beetroot. Do as the locals do and arrive for breakfast then leave with lengths of baguettes and fruit loaves tucked under your arms.

This artisan bakery specialises in pastries and whole wheat sourdough bread, producing some of the more complex and interesting loaves in town. Q Le Baker uses locally sourced flours and produce sourced from other vendors in the Prahran Market, producing high-quality baked goods. We never leave without a baguette, and it's hard to go past the sausage rolls. We refuse to pick a favourite pastry but our weekend box of goodies usually includes a twice-baked chocolate hazelnut croissant, a kouign-amann, the weekly Danish special and a cookie.

All Are Welcome is bringing quality sourdough to the lucky locals in Thornbury, Northcote and Ivanhoe East. The specialty flours, currently sourced from Miller Baker James (biodynamic certified), Wholegrain Milling (organic certified) and Tuerong Farm (sustainable practice), mean that this bread is not only outrageously tasty, but good for the environment, too. Expect seeded sourdough, fruit loaf and Finnish rye and for something sweet go the peach, ricotta and honey walnut focaccia. 

The pretty pastel interiors of this store are almost as eye-catching as the baked goods are tasty. Serving up outstanding bread and baked goods in Albert Park and Northcote, Bread Club is certainly a club of which we desperately want to be a member. From crusty baguettes and morish fougasse to piping hot pies and loaded sandwiches, you'll want to make sure you arrive hungry. Save room for a crispy cookie or a gooey custard tart. 

In a city inundated with excellent bread options, Austro Bakery in South Melbourne makes its mark with offerings of Euro-centric baked goods. Pretzels, sandwiches, tarts and doughnuts will be vying for your attention, singing their carby siren call. From the street, you can view a patissier working hard in the open kitchen, rolling and kneading dough. With produce almost entirely sourced from the neighbouring South Melbourne Market, you’ll have your work cut out for you when trying to decide what to pick. Savoury items come in the shape of stuffed ciabatta bread rolls, rye bread pretzels, toasties and impossibly crispy pizza slices. Sumptuous scrolls, tarts and cakes are also on offer – the flavours changing depending on seasonal produce.

Woodfrog Bakery has quietly grown from its little shop in St Kilda to now having 14 outposts that sling its 28-hour, naturally leavened, hand-shapened soir, fruit, spelt, pumpkin and olive loaves built off an eight-year-old starter. True devotees pre-order their bread to avoid disappointment, which we would strongly advise if you’re stalking out famous hot cross buns around Easter. Woodfrog also serves up an excellent almond croissant, a stellar chocolate babka and some of the best flavoured scones in Melbourne. 

We like eating carbs and feeling righteous – hence our love for Loafer Bread. The bakery is committed to sourcing top quality ingredients from sustainable suppliers, and uses organic and biodynamic products as much as possible, including milk, meat and eggs that are free-range and ethically sourced. Snag everything from a cinnamon scroll or a Danish, to an egg salad baguette or a focaccia with capers and cheese. 

To Be Frank Bakery is an artisan bakery in the backstreets of Collingwood. The bread is made through long, natural fermentation from organic or sustainable products that have been responsibly farmed. The open-format warehouse allows bread-lovers to watch their loaves being fermented, folded and shaped before being loaded into a multi-deck oven and transferred to the shelves, from which they fly off into the lucky hands of customers in no time at all.

Salted caramel doughnuts, loaves of rye and golden croissants fill every cabinet and wooden rack in this shop. Find a seat if you can and settle in for a morning of people-watching and pastry-eating. This also happens to be one the best pie shops in the city. So good, in fact, we'd settle for just sitting on the curb to stuff the peppery contents of a beef pie into our mouths. Get in before the mobs at lunch when fat sandwiches on rye and multigrain cause wars.

A1 is a beloved Sydney Road institution that has been keeping cash-strapped students fed with Lebanese zaatar pizza, cheese pies and spinach triangles, all for under $5 a pop since 1992. This bakery also has a Middle Eastern grocer attached to it, so you can pick up packets of house-baked pita as you stock up on pomegranate molasses, sumac and baklava.

The heaving display of flaky croissants, beef ragu pies, meringues and loaves is as daunting as it is impressive, but this bakery is best known for the fermented whole wheat bread with a loose-knit texture and nutty sesame crust and Easter fruit buns (be warned, the queues in April are carnage).

Glicks is a Jewish bakery that has been servicing bagel die-hards for many decades with an almost endless variety of the holey bread: plain, poppy, sesame, onion, sourdough, garlic, cinnamon raisin and choc chip (and that's just to name a few). Glicks also specialises in a wide selection of European and traditional-style bread, pastries, cakes and take-home food products such as dips and sandwiches. 

This sourdough micro-bakery located in Ripponlea specialises in gourmet breads and baked goods, but is well-known for its babka products, too. Its sourdough babka scrolls are almost too good to be true: sweet and pillowy dough is stuffed with a chocolate filling and covered in crunchy streusel, making for a magically morish mouthful. Zelda's has garnered a loyal following since it opened, and those with the inside scoop know the bread and pastries are worth queueing for.