Frenchies
Central welcomes a new neighbourhood haunt by way of Frenchies, a French bakery and coffee shop dishing out freshly baked pastries and viennoiseries alongside locally roasted and freshly ground brews. Named after the nickname for French people living abroad, Frenchies hopes to embrace cultures while still presenting authentic baked delights – each artisanal pastry is made in-house with a selection of goodies from espresso cinnamon rolls, orange & almond croissants to a sweet cream cheese bun.
G/F 39-43 Hollywood Road, Central; frenchiesbake.com
Sour Dough
Founder of legendary Passion bakery, Gérard Dubois continues his unstoppable journey of baked goods with Sour Dough, his newest venture in Wan Chai spotlighting salads and – surprise! – sourdough. Decades of knowledge and creativity have culminated in this project, with all the bread crafted from sourdough starters that have been in the works for over 30 years. Building on Hong Kong’s love affair with sourdough tarts, Sour Dough will present Croissants, Caramelised Baby Pear Feuilletine Baskets and Raspberry Rhubarb Mille-Feuilles – all prepared with the beloved sourdough base. The 24-seater space will also be home to an extensive salad bar, with Dubois boldly expanding his offerings beyond baked goods to include delightfully satiating and moreish sandwiches and salads, including a warm Pastrami Sauerkraut served on a warm dark rye sourdough, and the Black Bean Quinoa salad served with avocados and a punchy lime dressing.
Shop No. 2-3, G/F; Keen Hung Commercial Building; 80 Queen’s Road East, Wan Chai; @sourdoughcafehk
Bakehouse
Best for: Pastries
This huge industrial-style bakery was founded by Swiss pastry chef Grégoire Michaud, whose more-than-25 years experience of baking includes the opening of the Four Seasons in Hong Kong. His pastries are all exceptional — buttery croissants, flaky tarts (their standout egg tart must be ordered) and sugar-sweet buns — while sourdough, milk rolls and pain de mie can be bought plain or smothered with avocado, creamy roasted mushrooms and melted gruyere for brunch. Its a la carte menu lists an extensive array of delightful dishes that are best enjoyed in-house – just be prepared for queues.
Eric Kayser
Best for: Sourdough bread
Eric Kayser is a French bakery cafe from Paris that expanded to Hong Kong in 2012 and now serves 12 outlets across the city. While they are highly regarded for their buttery and rich croissants, the sourdough at Eric Kayser is an equally unmissable hidden gem. The texture of the bread is perfectly dense with just the right amount of chew, accompanied by a satisfying sourdough tang. Every product is made fresh daily in Hong Kong, under the direction of Culinary Director Alexandre Talpaert: each of the breads and viennoiseries are painstakingly rolled and shaped by hand, in order to remain true to the craft of artisanal baking as much as possible.
Multiple branches across Hong Kong; maison-kayser.com.hk
Cookie Vission
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Best for: Cookies
Cookie Vission dishes up decadent, gooey cookies of joy in a myriad of unique flavours. While signature crowd-pleasers are oatmeal raisin and triple chocolate, its recent “London Fog” flavour is described as a rich earl grey cookie with melted chocolate chips, Madagascar vanilla ganache and a vanilla crumb finish. Alternatively, the matcha white chocolate macadamia cookie is a decadent and hefty explosion of matcha goodness.
Order online at [email protected]; cookievission.com
Dang Wen Li by Dominique Ansel
Best for: Luxury
The name Dang Wen Li is a playful nod to “Dominique” in Cantonese, perfectly encapsulating the unique, Hong Kong themed collection created by Dominique Ansel. The “pineapple bun” comprises coconut mousse, coconut dacquoise, salted mascarpone cream and lime and passionfruit jam, while the “fish balls” are chewy bites of mochi filled with red bean ice-cream and torched until caramelised.
Shop OT G63A, G/F, Ocean Terminal, Harbour City, 3-27 Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui; dangwenli.com
Proof
Best for: Specialty loaves
Neighbourhood haunt Proof is an artisanal bakery on a leafy cul-de-sac in Happy Valley selling freshly made sourdough bread, pastries, cinnamon rolls and more. It’s a pocket-sized, whitewashed wheat haven that lists it’s daily offerings on a chalkboard menu outside, with a few speciality loaves and extra sweet treats available at the weekend. Everything is made on site each day by its bakers, using no preservatives, additives, improvers or stabilisers, and all its surplus product goes to charity.
Bien Caramélisé
Best for: Plant-based
Bien Caramélisé specialises in 100% plant-based French-style pastries. This vegan pâtisserie offers everything from mille-feuilles and tartes to gluten-free éclairs and more. The café is eco-conscious and uses sustainably sourced ingredients, taking the environment into consideration at every step of the baking and selling process. If you are looking to incorporate more greens into your diet, try starting with dessert!
Shop 1D, Hentiff Building, 160 Prince Edward Road West, Kowloon; biencaramelise.com
Plumcot
Best for: Croissants
From seasoned pastry chefs (and husband-and-wife team) Camille and Dominique who trained at Michelin-starred institutions in Paris, Plumcot is a Tai Hang-based artisanal bakery. It’s named after a plum-apricot fruit hybrid that the duo say embodies a harmonious mix of different things, just like their shop that opened in 2017, which serves up breads, pastries and ice cream in a variety of flavours. The most popular items are the delicate croissants, which sell out quickly especially at the weekend.
Fineprint
Best for: Croissants
Peel Street’s favourite coffee shop has opened a second location in trendy Tai Hang, with a bakery that allows it to make its own sourdough in-house. Jams and ricotta are also homemade, and there are plenty of Aussie favourites – smashed eggs, avo toast, and vegemite – on the eat-in menu. Everything is delicious, and the unpretentious bakery-to-bar situation encourages guests to hang out, carb-load and enjoy a glass of new-world wine, a classic cocktail or perhaps, a coffee-infused alcoholic beverage.
38 Peel St, Central; fineprint.hk
Tai Cheong Bakery
Best for: Local favourites
Established in 1954, this bakery serves up a seriously delicious egg tart, which has made it a beloved spot for locals and tourists alike – the former Governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten was known to frequent Tai Cheong regularly. It famously uses a butter-flavoured shortcrust, while sweetened egg is vivid yellow in colour and comes in at a cheap $5 a piece. It’s also known for other Chinese baked goods including its donut, which is a sugary delight of a mouthful.
Multiple branches across Hong Kong; taoheung.com.hk
Levain Bakery
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Use autolyse this time. Having a better oven spring! #levainbakeryhk #levainhk #roggenbauer
Best for: Bread
Levain is named after the leavening agent, made from flour and water, that’s used to start the bread-making process. The bakery was established by physicist Kwok Cheung Li or KC, as he’s affectionately known, who traded in one kind of science for another. He’s been selling sourdough breads since 2009, after finding the breads in Hong Kong to be largely unsatisfactory, establishing his flagship store in the PMQ building where it has a plant-filled terrace for guests to eat on.
Block B, Unit H105 and H107, PMQ, 35 Aberdeen Street, Central; levain-bakery.com
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Carina Fischer and Emma RussellCredit
Lead image: Arthur Elgort/Conde Nast at Getty Images
