Melbourne’s Best New Bakeries and Sandwich Shops of 2023

This year saw the city’s love affair with baked goods specialty shops continue. Bakeries specialising in everything from cinnamon scrolls to madeleines and even croffles (a croissant and waffle hybrid) opened shop.

In the sandwich sphere, American-style heroes like Reubens and New York-style bagels; Italian paninis and Vietnamese banh mi retained special places in Melburnians’ hearts.

Here are the 10 best bakeries and sandwich spots that opened this year.

Banh Mi Stand

Before opening this tiny eatery on Flinders Lane, Ai Huynh was a property sales consultant and Thi Le (not to be confused with the Jeow chef of the same name) was a head chef at Seven Seeds. They were also frequent travellers, taking countless trips to Vietnam and sampling rolls around the country.

Banh Mi Stand is a small operation, with just a takeaway counter and a few bright orange milk crates that operate as stools outside. But the shop – easily spotted thanks to a sign with an illustration of a Vietnamese baguette and Yves Klein blue branding – allows the pair to highlight standouts from their travels, reimagined through Le’s culinary lens.

The duo makes some of the city’s best banh mi. There are only six rolls on offer, including a cold-cut roll made with sliced ham, roast beef, pate and pork floss; a vegetarian tofu roll seasoned with roasted rice and salted cabbage; a hearty spicy-beef sausage banh mi; and the stand special, a combination of grilled pork, sliced ham and pork loaf.

The Butter Room

Hong Kim and Ara Cho’s The Butter Room is a small shop, so it’s not easy to find. The mostly Korean-influenced bakery cafe took off after opening in August, partly thanks to Tiktok and the many video-friendly aesthetic items on the menu. Social media favourites include the cream-cheese garlic bread, cream- and fruit-filled croissants, and dalgona coffees.

But the star is the lava pandori. This sweet Italian bread, baked as a one-person serve, arrives chimney-shaped and filled with strawberry, injeolmi (sweet rice cake) or matcha sauce. Once you remove the insert holding the filling in place, the sauce cascades down the sides, almost in slow motion. It’s high-key baked goods drama at its finest.

Drom Bakery

Croissants took many forms in 2023. With cubes, hemispheres and squiggles often standing in for the classic crescent shape.

But as Julia Moskin wrote back in March for the * New York Times*, “We will never reach peak croissant.” There’s always room for new and inventive takes on the buttery French classic. At the family-run 2023 newcomer Drom, these include creative flaky variations like the twice-baked hazelnut and chocolate crescent-shaped croissant; the mixed berry and custard half-moon croissant; buttery crème brûlée croissants; and even a half-moon “croissant sandwich” filled with pickled lobster, yuzu, chives, lettuce and celery.

Good Days Hot Bread

Good Days Hot Bread is a banh mi shop rolling out next-level interpretations of the classic French-Vietnamese rolls. Owner Nam Nguyen (also behind Good Days) has taken plenty of inspiration from the exceptional banh mis found in Hoi An.

The vegan version replicates the texture of the roast pork – tofu is rubbed with five-spice and pressed (making it crispier and more robust), then layered with rice cake in between to mimic the fatty mouthfeel of pork. It’s then heaped over mushroom pate.

Iris The Bakery

Iris is a family-run bakery that brings a slice of Copenhagen’s bread and pastry culture to Brunswick. It’s run by Tom Edwards (Brae, All Are Welcome, Tuerong Farm) and Betty Milner – and named after their daughter.

The staple here is the flavoursome (and enormous) table loaf – which has great crumb, a thick and chewy caramelised crust on the outside and soft inside.

Edwards has more than 12 years’ experience as a chef, having worked in kitchens under Dan Hunter (at Brae) and Teage Ezard before taking the reins as head chef at The Summertown Aristologist in the Adelaide Hills. He and Milner lived in Copenhagen for a three-year stint, where Edwards worked at acclaimed Restaurant Relae, before moving across to the group’s bakery. It’s there that he discovered his passion for bread and baking, which is on full display at Iris.

Mali Bakes

Patti Chimkire caused a sensation on Instagram during the 2020 lockdowns when her Mali Bakes account became a bright spot in an otherwise dark time. She started baking and delivering cookies around Melbourne and became known for her colourful vintage-style cakes.

Chimkire’s business grew from a one-person operation to employ two (soon to be three) pastry chefs, with a commercial kitchen and shopfront in Thornbury offering cakes by the slice every Saturday.

In mid-June, Chimkire opened a Mali Bakes cake window on Moor Street in Fitzroy. There are no elaborately decorated cakes at the neighbourhood window. Instead, Chimkire is using the shop as an opportunity to explore exciting flavour combinations and seasonal ingredients. The offerings change monthly and standouts since opening have included a matcha chiffon roll filled with sake-soaked cherries and white chocolate cream, and a roasted corn cheesecake so good it made two appearances on the menu.

Madeleine de Proust

This Lygon Street bakery has been open for less than a month, but we’re (happily) calling it early. At their bakery, former Attica head pastry chef HyoJu Park and her chef-partner Rong Yao Soh take full advantage of the versatility of madeleines – buttery Genoise sponge cakes, which are often seashell-shaped and are known for their signature bump.

Respectively, Park and Soh have worked in the kitchens of Seoul’s two-Michelin-starred Mingles and London’s Galvin at Windows (which had a Michelin star during the time Soh was there). The meticulous approach to culinary arts they developed in some of the world’s best kitchens is evident in the fastidious approach the pair take to their rotating creations.

Park and Soh also infuse their entire operation with nostalgia. The corn madeleine – a brown butter madeleine filled with cream cheese and buttered cooked corn (“for pops”, Soh says), topped with a popcorn ganache piped to look like corn kernels, then finished with a husk made from corn-infused chocolate – is inspired by a pre-packaged ice-cream treat Park has fond memories of eating as a child in Gwangyang, South Korea. Similarly, the store’s pandan coconut madeleine is influenced by Soh’s childhood in Malaysia. The edible gold-brushed golden nugget is a nod to Melbourne’s gold rush era.

Pieman’s Son

What’s in a name? At this cosy pie shop, it’s a family’s pie-making legacy. Owner Pat Cremean is the son of Terry Cremean, the founder of Boscastle Pastries. Terry sold his well-loved Melbourne business in 2018. Then, in 2021, Pat put on a charity pie sale. It was such a hit that Pat went on to open Pieman’s Son two years later – just five minutes from where he grew up.

The hefty pies at this hotspot – which come in single and family sizes – offer a range of flavours: classic beef, Thai chicken, Moroccan lamb and beef ragu. One of the main vegetarian pies is inspired by the fillings of a spanakopita: it uses veggies, including garlic, onion and silverbeet, as well as herbs, including dill and parsley. Other mainstays include pork and fennel sausage rolls and big hunks of vanilla slice.

Ruben’s Deli

This modern take on the delicatessen is a one-stop shop, with seasonal salads, sandwiches, customisable bagels and more on offer. Co-owners Amanda Ruben (Miss Ruben, Cooper & Milla’s) and Chris Watson (Cutler & Co, Marion) designed it as a nod to New York.

You can expect a wide range of items on the seasonal menu, including Nutella tahini cookies, cinnamon babka and Ruben’s renowned Reuben sandwich. The semi-open kitchen is equipped with a full smoker, which the team uses for cold-smoking their salmon, among other things. Highlights from the seafood offering include hot-smoked salmon with hot honey and a house-made whipped cod roe.

Stefanino Panino

Stefanino Panino is an Italian deli-style sandwich shop, founded by former schoolteacher Stef Condello and his mother, Diana Condello. Known for attracting long lines of customers and selling out long before lunchtime ends, it originally opened on Lygon Street in Brunswick East, before moving to a much larger space at Collingwood Yards last month.

There are 12 sandwiches on offer, including the Roma (porchetta, roasted pepper, provolone, rocket and Dijon mustard), the Il Manzo (rare roast beef, provolone, picked and roasted peppers, red onion and Dijon mustard) and the Bologna (plain or peppercorn mortadella, stracciatella, pickled peppers and olives). Plus, build-your-own, customisable options.

Honourable mentions

Matcha fans were flocking to Raymond Tan and his cousin Chian Ting’s pop-up turned permanent outpost Matcha Mate and Sebby’s Scrolls finally opened a takeaway window.

Pickles brought nostalgic milk-bar vibes and vegan sandwiches to the north, while Spazio Paradiso contributed to Melbourne’s panini craze and Ray’s Sandwich Deli delivered New York-style bagels (and chocolate chip cookies) to a quiet Hawthorn street.

Audience Favourites

Broadsheet readers were enthralled by Little Havana, Charlie Carrington’s (Atlas Dining) nod to Miami and Cubano sandwiches, as well as Black Star Pastry’s CBD store opening.

Additional reporting by Claire Adey, Daniela Frangos, Ruby Harris, Callum McDermott, Quincy Malesovas and Jo Rittey.

Don’t miss our list of the year’s best new cafes.