When I was a kid we used to buy fresh bread on a Sunday from the “hot bread shop” (we Queensland bogans use three words instead of ‘bakery’ so you know). We’d walk in and get a loaf of “white-sliced” (because Queensland bogans) and I still remember its warm doughy goodness and how the butter would melt almost immediately and how we’d smash through that loaf at the speed of sound. Jump to today and Melbourne and, while my tastebuds have (mercifully) changed, I still fang for warm bread, especially on a Sunday morning.
And now here is where our story begins: en route to gym (so fitness) I see a queue. Think like the queue that used to happen at Lune in Elwood back in the day people would queue for croissants, except this time we’re in an industrial strip of Brunswick. The queue is about 20 people deep and I’m, like, “huh?” But I sense food is happening here. Its siren call beckons and who am I to resist when the options are food or gym. Later, gym.
It takes about 15 minutes to get to the front of the queue (people can’t queue properly. They just can’t. It’s one of those mysteries I’ll never understand like pyramids, complex algebra or the comedy of Rebel Wilson) but when you get to the counter: BAKED GOODNESS ABOUNDS.
Turkish bread, sourdough, all of the breads. And they’re warm. Butter-melting-in-record-time warm. Better still, it’s bloody delicious. But it’s not just bread: there’s danishes and the magnificent Polish jam donut, the pączek. Warm, doughy, with a bountiful injection of jam and coated in sugar like a Vegas dancer is coated in sequins. It’s amazing. Gym? What gym?
So if a Sunday morning of queuing and fresh af baked delicacies is your bag, then 19 Ovens Street, Brunswick, the Ovens Street Bakery, is your Prada. But get there early because it’s only open between 9am – 1pm or until sold out. Sah Brunswick, but sah worth it.
