{"id":821441,"date":"2026-07-24T19:00:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T19:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/821441\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T19:00:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T19:00:50","slug":"brisbanes-best-cafes-bakeries-2026-good-foods-essential-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/821441\/","title":{"rendered":"Brisbane\u2019s best cafes, bakeries 2026: Good Food\u2019s essential guide"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brisbane\u2019s brunch scene has changed a lot over the past decade. We celebrate the best operators in the inaugural Essential Cafes and Bakeries of Brisbane guide.<\/p>\n

\"MattSave<\/p>\n

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AAA<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to think it started during the pandemic. Brisbane was shut down. Restaurants and cafes couldn\u2019t operate. So they adapted \u2013 fast.<\/p>\n

For cafes, that meant turning themselves into a coffee window or a bakery or a specialised grocer \u2013 whatever it was, as long as it was grab-and-go. Anything to keep some sort of cashflow ticking over. <\/p>\n

\"IdleIdle in New Farm.Markus Ravik<\/p>\n

But adversity has a habit of creating opportunity. <\/p>\n

Take Pawpaw in East Brisbane, back then still the buzzy engine of the small fiefdom of venues owned and operated by Giorgina Venzin. Venzin turned it into a pop-up bakery with the help of baker Lindsay Krahenbring, who\u2019d found herself out of work as a pastry chef after the shutdown of Hillstone, St Lucia Golf Links\u2019 wedding and functions venue.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Inside<\/a><\/p>\n

Krahenbring was (and remains) a weapon, Pawpaw\u2019s bakery pop-up turned into a hit, and within a year, Venzin had created a bakery, Darvella, in Bulimba with Krahenbring at the helm. Darvella is now regarded as up there among Brisbane\u2019s best bakeries.<\/p>\n

The pandemic was full of these sorts of stories: things becoming other things, and then creating other things again.<\/p>\n

\"SaludSalud cafe & restaurant in Auchenflower.<\/p>\n

But you could argue COVID just accelerated what was already happening in Brisbane\u2019s cafe scene by early 2020. Diners were becoming more sophisticated, so the classic full-service, order-at-the-table cafe with a broad menu and well-made espresso wasn\u2019t quite what they were chasing anymore. Not all the time, anyway.<\/p>\n

They wanted pour over coffee and batch brew. They wanted ceremonial-grade matcha. Eggs Benedict was fine, sure, but why not omurice or fancy congee or egg drop sandwiches? Pre-made cabinet sandwiches became showstopping chef-made numbers, bakeries began to drill down on kouign-amanns or eclairs or custard tarts.<\/p>\n

\"QueenQueen Amann\u2019s specialty? Kouign-amann, naturally.Markus Ravik<\/p>\n

As for operators, reducing a venue down to a focused offering means better control of overheads in an age when the cost of everything seems to be going up.<\/p>\n

The result in 2026 is the Brisbane cafe scene has never been more diverse. Breakfast and brunch look a lot different in today\u2019s collection of 30 reviews that make up Part 1 of the inaugural Essential Brisbane Cafes and Bakeries guide of 2026.<\/p>\n

We live in an age of venues doing one or two things and doing them well, whether it be coffee, matcha, baked sweets or toasties. And it\u2019s in all corners of town.<\/p>\n

\"Sarni\u2019sSarni\u2019s chef-made sandwiches are some of the best in town.Markus Ravik<\/p>\n

Mountain River Patisserie has become a mecca for creative pastries and onigiri in Runcorn, Sarni makes some of Brisbane\u2019s best sandwiches in Ascot, and Passport is celebrated for its speciality coffee in Northgate. <\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get us wrong, there are still great cafes in the traditional sense of the word, but they\u2019re fewer and further between, and often need to do be exceptional to cut through: think Kin in Teneriffe, or Goodfolk in Bardon, or Florence in Camp Hill.<\/p>\n

\"FlorenceFlorence sits on a sleepy suburban corner in bucolic Camp Hill.<\/p>\n

The other trend we\u2019ve noticed recently? The return of the all-day venue \u2013 the kind of place that feels right whether it\u2019s serving you brunch, lunch or dinner. Emme is perhaps the most prominent example right now \u2013 Tommy Tze Lian\u2019s slick James Street diner easily switching from heaving brunch services to moody dinners \u2013 but over the road The Green pulls a similar trick on weekends and, up on Arthur Street, Bistro Tino will do the same come September.<\/p>\n

Running a hospitality business in 2026 is hard. After years of pandemics and inflation and interest rate fluctuations and natural disasters and war, many operators, if given a chance, will wonder aloud to you why they do it. And that\u2019s a bummer because what they\u2019re doing has never, ever been better. <\/p>\n

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\"MattMatt Shea<\/a> is Food and Culture Editor at Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-at-large at Broadsheet Brisbane, and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, the Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among many others.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brisbane\u2019s brunch scene has changed a lot over the past decade. We celebrate the best operators in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":821442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-821441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}