Category Archives: cafe

St Honoré Bakery, North Sydney

bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

2/40 Miller St, North Sydney, New South Wales
www.sthonorebakery.com.au

Finding myself in North Sydney around 9am on a weekday, I did a quick web search for bakeries in the vicinity. The Bourke Street Bakery was nearest and sounded promising, with Internet reviews recommending the pork and fennel sausage roll highly. But when I arrived there and managed to penetrate the queue of a dozen people waiting to order take-away coffees in order to see what sweet delights lurked in the display cabinet I was heartbroken to see that they did not stock vanilla slices. Thus crestfallen, I sought the next bakery on my search list, St Honoré.

St Honore bakery

This is a French styled bakery lurking in a nondescript black granite office tower front around the corner from North Sydney station. It too was doing a brisk trade in take-away coffees as the morning office workers began their day in the corporate rat race. Peering through the window I spied both the quest objects, so walked boldly in and ordered. The woman behind the counter reached for white paper bags before I specified that I would be eating in at the small café tables, whereupon she changed to a pair of white plates. I would have liked to have taken the bags outside, but there was nowhere nearby to sit and the morning was chilly.

Continue reading St Honoré Bakery, North Sydney →

St Malo Bakery: addendum, Crows Nest

bakery, cafe, city, nsw, vanilla slice

83 Willoughby Road, Crows Nest, New South Wales

I’ve already reviewed St Malo Bakery in this blog, awarding a 9/10 for their fancy “pistachio and raspberry mille-feuille”, which was deemed close enough to a vanilla slice to count. But the other day I was walking past and popped in to buy a loaf of bread, and lo! Sitting there in the counter display were not only some of those fancy slices, but also some plain “vanilla mille-feuilles”!

Vanilla slice: St Malo Bakery

Excited beyond belief, I ponied up to the counter, ordering my loaf of bread, “and a vanilla slice, please”. This achieved the desired result, and I stole away from the bakery with a light rye sourdough loaf and one of the vanilla mille-feuilles in hand, packaged with great care in a small cardboard box and then a paper bag for consumption off the premises.

Continue reading St Malo Bakery: addendum, Crows Nest →

St Malo Bakery, Crows Nest

bakery, cafe, city, nsw, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

83 Willoughby Road, Crows Nest, New South Wales
www.stmalobakery.com

I have wanted to review this bakery since the beginning, but every time I went in they had nothing resembling a vanilla slice in their selection of cakes of the day. Until this day.

St Malo is a fancy French bakery which does a line in fresh bread, croissants and other flaky pastries, and beautiful looking cakes and muffins. They also make delicious pies, as well as the other object of this review, sausage rolls.

St Malo Bakery

On this day I went in, intending to have a pie for lunch and not expecting to get anything else. But as I looked into the cake display, I saw gleaming there a magnificent shining creation, resplendent in its French elegance. It was three layers of pastry separated by layers of custard, with intriguingly attractive red stains in it, and topped by a sprinkle of ground nuts and a dusting of cocoa. This, I thought, is in essence a vanilla slice. Upon inquiry, I was told that it was a “pistachio and raspberry mille-feuille”. Well, a mille-feuille is basically a vanilla slice, so good enough!

Continue reading St Malo Bakery, Crows Nest →

D&M’s Bakery Cafe, Angaston

bakery, cafe, country, sa, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

36 Murray Street, Angaston, South Australia
dmsbakerycafe.com

This place was a must-visit, as it boldly advertises “the best vanilla slice in the Valley” on all of its promotional material in the tourist guides of the Barossa Valley, and on a large sign outside the premises.

D&M's Bakery Cafe sign

It occupies a traditional neat-looking shop front on the main street of the tiny town of Angaston, but inside it stretches expansively back from the street to form a somewhat funky cafe atmosphere with chill music playing softly. The display counter is large, with a big selection of delicious looking savoury pies, plus dozens of cakes and slices, and then a fresh sandwich bar.

Continue reading D&M’s Bakery Cafe, Angaston →

Linke’s Bakery and Tearooms, Nuriootpa

bakery, cafe, country, sa, sausage roll, vanilla slice,

40 Murray Street, Nuriootpa, South Australia

I found this bakery cafe for breakfast. Linke’s Bakery has been operating since 1938, as a small sign inside proclaims proudly. Apparently everyone in Nuriootpa was part of the Linke family back then, because across the road is the Linke Butcher, and around the corner is Linke’s Building and Construction.

Linke's Bakery

The bakery does a line in muesli or bacon and eggs and various other breakfast goodies, but I sacrificed the chance for an eggs Benedict to try their sausage roll and vanilla slice. The bakery goods all look really good here, with mouth watering sweet tarts and slices galore, and a full range of hot savoury pies with obviously hand-crimped pastry tops. Given this promising selection, I was looking forward to reviewing the twin quest items.

Continue reading Linke’s Bakery and Tearooms, Nuriootpa →