Overview
Throw away everything you knew about your typical suburban bakery because Paddock is none of that. Just a month or two young, Paddock Bakery is a special pocket on the Gold Coast that is more comparable to something you'd find in the hinterland of northern NSW than the highrises of a city.
The new artisan bake house is quite literally set in a house. While Brisbane has Queenslanders aplenty, the GC is all 1950s fibros or newer, so it is impressive yet again that the owners found a weatherboard cottage to restore from ruin. With a white and grey colour scheme, the owners have sourced old butchers blocks, a railway table and scales to give the space a humble farm feel.
Keeping mostly the shell, the home is almost split in two by a floor to ceiling glass wall that separates you from the imposing brick wood-fired oven and the food-prep going on around it. The glass wall means you are immersed in the creation of the bread and food where everything is being hand-made honestly before your eyes. With a massive herb garden round the side, it feels evident that Paddock wish to reconnect people with food – the paddock-to-plate trend.
On the bakery side, Paddock primarily offers rustic organic sourdough loaves of all varieties, but most people will pop by for more than bread. This new social meeting place is a cafe offering fresh and healthy gourmet salads, gourmet sandwiches using slices of sourdough and a random selection of baked goods daily. Paddock Bakery is quick becoming known for its semi-sourdough doughnuts. It's first in best dressed and word has it that they sell out before 10am.
On our two visits the salads ranged from a leafy mix with wood-fired pumpkin, to 'detox' filled with superfoods and a number of grain-based offers. You haven't known a sandwich until you've had haloumi and caramelised onion shoved between two slices of organic fresh-baked olive sourdough. Heaven.
Locals have adopted Paddock in droves, riding in on bikes, by foot and by car. Join the peaceful crowd on the white chairs under the shady trees in the front courtyard, and catch a breeze while sipping coffee, eating doughnuts and enjoying the atmosphere.