Find the sweet spot this weekend at these 10 top cake shops and hole-in-the-wall bakeries
This list is part of Good Food's Essential Melbourne Cafes and Bakeries of 2025. Presented by T2, the guide celebrates the people and places that shape our excellent cafe and bakery scenes and includes more than 100 venues reviewed anonymously across 10 categories, including icons, those best for food, tea, coffee and matcha, and where to get the city's best sandwiches and baked goods. (These reviews also live on the Good Food app, and are discoverable on the map.).
Amann Patisserie
This French-owned hole-in-the-wall patisserie has injected new life into Nicholson Street, with a constant but quick-moving queue of those in the know. Since it opened in 2024, its small but expertly executed selection of mostly sweet, buttery treats – along with creative cold brews – has only gained traction. Maple-bacon Danish, almond croissant or kouign-amann? It's difficult to choose, so don't. Make a beeline early and load up with everything.
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Sydney Morning Herald
an hour ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
It was a groundbreaking crime book – and this TV adaptation is even stranger
Smilla's Sense of Snow ★★★ It's hard to overstate the impact Danish novelist Peter Hoeg had in 1992 with his literary thriller Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow. A crime mystery about an alienated Copenhagen woman who's convinced her neighbour, a young Greenlandic boy, died under suspicious circumstances, it spent months on the bestseller lists and was Time 's Book of the Year. Hoeg unfolded a fantastical conspiracy and a sly reckoning with his homeland's colonial past. It was a groundbreaking book, attuned to today's social and political currents. Hollywood put out a diligent, tidied-up movie adaptation in 1997, with Danish filmmaker Pelle August directing Julia Ormond in the title role, but Hoeg's prose, fluid and evocative, allows for no shortage of interpretations. Hence, this European co-production, a six-part existential thriller that takes more than enough liberties with the source material to sit distinctly aside from the feature film and, sometimes, even the book. A smidgeon of science-fiction, a mass of the metaphysical, Smilla's Sense of Snow is a curious reinvention. The setting remains Copenhagen, but it's now 2040 and the Danish capital is suffering through an energy crisis and constant surveillance; residents get a monthly allotment of power, but it's barely enough unless you can pay for more. The how and why is unclear, but the political chaos is obvious: nationalism and political violence is boiling over amidst an election. For Smilla Jaspersen (Filippa Coster-Waldau), it's a matter of little consequence – the former climate activist lives alone, aligning with her late mother's Inuit heritage over her privileged father's Danish outlook. She uses 'Europeans' as a pejorative phrase. Created by the British filmmaker Amma Asante (Belle) and the British writer Clive Bradley (Trapped), the show is focused on examining truths rather than teasing them out. Smilla's bond with Isaiah (Silver Wolfe), who has come to Copenhagen with his bereft Greenlandic mother after his father's death, is sketched out quickly, in the shadow of the solemn little boy's death after he falls from a rooftop. Smilla, who also grew up in Greenland, can tell from the footprints on the apartment building's roof that something was awry. The swift declaration of an accidental death by the authorities makes her start digging. The narrative is quick to show us that something is amiss, and that the stakes involved have compromised many. Smilla and Isaiah's neighbour, Tunisian political refugee Rahid Youseffi (Elyas M'Barek), quickly goes from helping the boy to spying on Smilla as she starts to reveal information. The schemes that connect Isaiah's past in Greenland to the energy crisis and the election are desperate and often crude. 'We only have 30 good years left,' one plotter, tech mogul Caspen Tork (Henry Lloyd-Hughes), tells the government minister he soon ensnares, Katja Claussen (Amanda Collin). What comes to the fore is Smilla's anguish. Investigating Isaiah's death reawakens her memories of Greenland, tapping into a mystical state that folds together historic visions and contemporary dream states. As with the last season of True Detective, Smilla's Sense of Snow looks at crime through the lens of Indigenous communities and their connection to the land that was long ago taken from them.
The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
It was a groundbreaking crime book – and this TV adaptation is even stranger
Smilla's Sense of Snow ★★★ It's hard to overstate the impact Danish novelist Peter Hoeg had in 1992 with his literary thriller Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow. A crime mystery about an alienated Copenhagen woman who's convinced her neighbour, a young Greenlandic boy, died under suspicious circumstances, it spent months on the bestseller lists and was Time 's Book of the Year. Hoeg unfolded a fantastical conspiracy and a sly reckoning with his homeland's colonial past. It was a groundbreaking book, attuned to today's social and political currents. Hollywood put out a diligent, tidied-up movie adaptation in 1997, with Danish filmmaker Pelle August directing Julia Ormond in the title role, but Hoeg's prose, fluid and evocative, allows for no shortage of interpretations. Hence, this European co-production, a six-part existential thriller that takes more than enough liberties with the source material to sit distinctly aside from the feature film and, sometimes, even the book. A smidgeon of science-fiction, a mass of the metaphysical, Smilla's Sense of Snow is a curious reinvention. The setting remains Copenhagen, but it's now 2040 and the Danish capital is suffering through an energy crisis and constant surveillance; residents get a monthly allotment of power, but it's barely enough unless you can pay for more. The how and why is unclear, but the political chaos is obvious: nationalism and political violence is boiling over amidst an election. For Smilla Jaspersen (Filippa Coster-Waldau), it's a matter of little consequence – the former climate activist lives alone, aligning with her late mother's Inuit heritage over her privileged father's Danish outlook. She uses 'Europeans' as a pejorative phrase. Created by the British filmmaker Amma Asante (Belle) and the British writer Clive Bradley (Trapped), the show is focused on examining truths rather than teasing them out. Smilla's bond with Isaiah (Silver Wolfe), who has come to Copenhagen with his bereft Greenlandic mother after his father's death, is sketched out quickly, in the shadow of the solemn little boy's death after he falls from a rooftop. Smilla, who also grew up in Greenland, can tell from the footprints on the apartment building's roof that something was awry. The swift declaration of an accidental death by the authorities makes her start digging. The narrative is quick to show us that something is amiss, and that the stakes involved have compromised many. Smilla and Isaiah's neighbour, Tunisian political refugee Rahid Youseffi (Elyas M'Barek), quickly goes from helping the boy to spying on Smilla as she starts to reveal information. The schemes that connect Isaiah's past in Greenland to the energy crisis and the election are desperate and often crude. 'We only have 30 good years left,' one plotter, tech mogul Caspen Tork (Henry Lloyd-Hughes), tells the government minister he soon ensnares, Katja Claussen (Amanda Collin). What comes to the fore is Smilla's anguish. Investigating Isaiah's death reawakens her memories of Greenland, tapping into a mystical state that folds together historic visions and contemporary dream states. As with the last season of True Detective, Smilla's Sense of Snow looks at crime through the lens of Indigenous communities and their connection to the land that was long ago taken from them.
Sydney Morning Herald
2 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
The siblings behind Via Porta open an Italian-inspired cafe in Melbourne's leafy north-east
Previous SlideNext Slide Cafe$$$$ The latest venue by siblings Sarah, Simon, Ryan and Jonathan Cosentino (Via Porta) has opened on a quiet strip of shops on Waterdale Road in Ivanhoe. Its name honours their mother, Lucia, who instilled in them a love of food and hospitality. But it also translates to 'light' in their native Italian. The warm and welcoming eatery with its large open kitchen is inspired by the Cosentinos' upbringing, including the homely pastas that graced the family table. The menu includes a punchy puttanesca and 'nonna's' bolognese. But there are also fresh ideas on show. Chicken schnitzel showered in parmesan comes with a sidecar of vodka-tomato sauce. Ricotta hotcakes served with maple syrup, mascarpone and blueberry compote are 'like a hybrid between your standard pancake and your Japanese pancake'. A few Via Porta favourites are also in the mix. There are fried eggs in spicy all'arrabbiata-inspired sugo; crab spaghetti with fermented chilli and lemon crumb; and doorstopper French toast, made of croissant dough that's baked in a loaf tin then topped with poached pears, almond brittle, caramel sauce and creme anglaise.
