The Commercial Bakery

Rear 360
Little Collins Street,
Melbourne
Ph: 03 9670 7214

MY favourite city cafe has a new, flashy sibling. Flinders Lane superstar Journal has a rival in a roomier upstart the Commercial Bakery. The latest from Melbourne cafe guru Con Christopoulos is hidden off Little Collins St, near Elizabeth St.

The bottom floor of a bluestone gem, a former truck rental business, houses this interesting bakery. High ceilings, polished concrete floors and retro glass shutter windows retain the former warehouse/factory gone retro posh feel. It's essentially an extremely cool and original fit-out with coloured tiled walls and fabulous light fittings brightening things up.

Daily specials included a lamb and barley soup and pasta. A selection of sandwiches in massive slices of freshly baked sourdough bread with ham and cheese ($7), goats curd, beetroot and onion jam ($8.50), traditional salad and cheddar ($8.50) and corned beef, sauerkraut and mustard ($10).

We loved the chicken pie. ($11). It was fancy, with white wine sauce and thyme. Delicious soft, melt in your mouth pastry encased tasty chunks of chicken. beautiful. The field mushroom and herb tart was deliciously light, like a mousse. ($9). All pies come with a crispy salad of mixed lettuce leaves, contrasting nicely with the pastries.

Traditional spanakopita ($8.50) and lamb, olive and tomato ($11) pies complete the pie menu.
Pastries for the sweet tooth include old fashioned lemon tea cake ($7), baked cheesecake ($5) and shortbread ($1) and choc panaforte ($1.50). Quality coffee and San Pellegrini chinotto topped off our lovely lunch.

The good news is The Commercial Bakery is open for brekkie from 7am, serving up a small menu of varied toasts, egg and bacon ciabatta ($6.50) and semolina or oat porridge ($7). Bakery goods can be taken away.

8/10

Almost French

138 Swan St, Richmond
Ph: 9429 2080
Open: Mon-Sat, 7am-5pm

I GO past Almost French on my tram twice a day and without fail I inwardly drool at the crusty bread and sugary donuts on display in the window. The classic French-style bakery seems out of place in grungy Swan St. But at the same time, every time I go past it seems so right.

Finally I found myself in Swan St on a Saturday afternoon with some time up my sleeve so I popped in. As it was late most of the selections were gone and I hadn’t really had breakfast, let alone lunch, so I was ready to eat.

A scrambled egg and bacon baguette looked pretty good ($7.50) as did the croque Monsieur (ham and gruyere cheese grilled sandwich) and croque Madame (same as Monsieur but with a fried egg on top). After a quick deliberation, I settled on a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich on wholemeal bread ($7.50) with a chai latte ($3).

From the outside, the sandwich looked great mainly because of the bread, which had been thickly sliced. Unfortunately in reality it wasn’t so good. Even though I was attracted to it because it looked so filling, there was just too much bread. I’m not sure of the technical ham/cheese/tomato vs. bread ratio, but in this case it was way out of whack.

The chai on the other hand came in a big glass, was brewed with real T2 leaves (a rarity these days) and was steaming hot. There were funky tunes on the radio, both papers were on the paper stand just waiting to be read by me and the general atmosphere was laid back, which is just what I was after.

While the sandwich didn’t really rock my world, the whole experience only stung me $10.50 so I haven’t totally knocked this one off my list. Why? Well, Almost French has a great selection of sweets in a display cabinet such as baked cheesecake, tiny apple crumbles and glazed fruit tarts. Add a chai latte to one of those and I reckon the Swan St bakery would tick most of the boxes.

Stay tuned and I’ll let you know.

5.5/10

- Zoe