The Baker's Duck

Overview

The story starts in a Toowoomba shed, roller door going up each Saturday morning to a queue of croissant-hungry locals. That garage operation has since grown into a proper institution, now running under an executive chef and owner who've kept the from-scratch approach intact even as the shop's grown up around it.

Everything is made in-house, and some of it takes real time — the croissants alone are a multi-day process. The menu shifts with the seasons, so there's always a reason to come back: novelty pastries built around whatever's good that month, alongside a steady lineup of pies, sausage rolls and sourdough loaves. Local supplier partnerships, for eggs and edible flowers among other things, keep the connection to the region showing up in the food itself.

The cabinet holds its own too, with vegetarian options sitting next to the meatier staples, and the drinks list runs deeper than most bakeries bother with — seasonal specials, a proper matcha, and coffee treated as seriously as the baking. For anyone who claims they don't really do pastry, the gluten-free Brownie Vanilla Basque Cheesecake tends to change minds.

It's since been voted the best bakery in the state, and stays open 363 days a year — the trade-off being that once the day's batch is gone, it's gone.

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