Baguette Studios

You definitely get the feeling that everything matters, and all matters are attended to, at Baguette Studios, a small dine-in and takeaway bakery in one of those peculiarly North Melbourne streets that are a few steps from hospital, university, trams and eight lanes of traffic but also feel somehow like a country town.

This family business is a collaboration between pastry chef Aileen Seo, her baker husband Paul Kwon and her chef brother Jiho Sur. The Seoul-born trio are passionate about French baked goods and Australian ingredients: these influences are plaited into their store.

The descriptor “Studios” is telling. Bread and pastries are displayed behind glass like sculptures or artefacts and there’s an artisanal, if ephemeral, poise in every sandwich, loaf or snack.

Baguettes are filled with ingredients like smoked salmon and cream cheese, or house-cured rare-breed ham with gruyere and pickle. The croissants here are purposely soft, made with a milk poolish (a kind of pre-ferment of flour and yeast) that aims at flavour rather than flakiness.

Must order: The monte cristo sandwich ($23). Think of it as a ham and cheese sanga on steroids: dipped in egg, dredged in panko and deep-fried before dusted in icing sugar and served alongside a pot of house-made blueberry compote and a tiny jug of maple syrup.

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