What goes best with coffee?

Small Batch in Little Howard St is expanding and opening a place in the CBD following the successful launch of its pastries during the pandemic.

Cheese and chilli twists, pastries flavoured with tonka bean and Danishes topped by plums are some of its original products.

Pastry chef Charlie is a bit of a local celebrity even though he’s only been baking in North Melbourne for a year.

Charlie moved from South Yarra bakery Tivoli Road, which Small Batch manager Pippa used to run, but he is camera-shy and like many in the local industry likes to keep a low profile. 

“We got our kitchen signed off by council a week after lockdown began,” Pippa said. “We went ahead anyway and opened from the cellar door.”

Locals stuck in lockdown quickly came to appreciate the takeaway pastries in a laneway reminiscent of a speakeasy.

The chewy, soughdough bread is excellent and the pastries have a twist, with unusual spices or a different combination of greens in the spinach pie. Tonka bean is similar to cinnamon, the staff say. 

A similar scenario exists at Beatrix in Queensberry St, a bakery so unusual and outstanding it has 74,000 followers on Instagram.

Locals say there can be a queue of 50 people waiting outside for a takeaway cake.

Proprietor Natalie Paull worked with Maggie Beer and Stephanie Alexander, pioneers of the celebrity foodsmith phenomenon and she started up the business a decade ago.

Artistry is one of the main selling points at Beatrix with customers ushered into the small corner shop two at a time with as much ceremony and reverence as was once reserved for making a withdrawal from a bank. 

Front-of-house manager Charlotte Vermeers said the business want to keep a bit of mystique about the visits.

Customers are asked to keep their phones under control, but most can’t resist posting pictures of their favourite items on Instagram.

One customer drove across town to the cake shop when her mum visited from the country.

It’s a classic Melbourne situation,” she said. “If people go and do something well, it doesn’t matter if it’s a hole in the wall or town hall size, people will come.”

Another customer said the donuts were the best she’d had with a classic, clean flavour, “not like old oil”.

The shop is famous for its light sponges, but the flourless pumpkin cake is also excellent and not too sweet. Crystallised honey adds a tang, said another connoisseur.

Small Batch was opened 12 years ago by well-known restaurateur Andrew Kelly who sold Auction Rooms to focus on the coffee side of the business.