Top 5 bakeries and patisseries

Flour and Stone
Flour and Stone bakes the kinds of old-fashioned delights you would expect to find in an Enid Blyton book. Think lemon drizzle cake, chocolate tarts, cinnamon buns, and a hazelnut torte that will leave you weak at the knees – that crashing sound is diets being gleefully cast aside in favour of a slice of triple-layered vanilla cake with cream and raspberries, washed down with a cup of heart-stirring coffee.

Black Star
Pastry chef Christopher The has consistently delivered outstanding pies, cakes and chocolates to hungry inner westies for years now. The lamb shank pie is a melt-in-your-mouth fistful of flaky pastry and braised meat. Even the coffee is good. It’s not hard to see why this tiny shop off King Street boasts enormous queues on weekends.

Bourke St Bakery
The queue often stretches around the corner, but hell, it’s worth it. There’s nothing better than snagging a couple of pork and fennel or lamb and harissa sausage rolls, a loaf of sourdough, maybe some of their chorizo and thyme studded hot bread, and a tray of assorted sweets cakes (we love the ginger brulee tarts).

Victoire
At Victoire you will find stupendous pastry, excellent pies and some of the best bread to be found north of the Bridge. The olive baguette and the strawberry marscarpone cake with burnt toffee crust is reason enough to get on your bike, or if you are expecting company the delicate, flakey cheese twists are a sure fire crowd-pleaser.

Pasticceria Papa
There are Italian-style sweets and biscotti to kill your nonna for at this glorious suburban pasticceria, not to mention baked arancini, foccaccias, cornettos, cannoli, and the legendary ricotta cake – made to a closely guarded secret recipe – that causes queues stretching around the block at Christmas time.