Dedicated to buttery kouign-amann, it’s also serving fresh-baked danishes, sourdough croissants, as well as flaky house-made sausage rolls and pies.
What happened to King Street?
Brisbane now has a national reputation for nailing new precincts, and in 2018, as Howard Smith Wharves opened and Fish Lane continued to mature, this Bowen Hills strip felt like the final piece of a three-part narrative.
It started with a hiss and a roar. Montrachet moved down from Paddington and then-owner Shannon Kellam also opened King Street Bakery. Then there was a Fat Dumpling, a La Macelleria, a Banoi, a Lamb Shop, and Super Combo. All fine operators doing fine things.
Elsewhere, though, there was the decidedly mid El Camino Cantina, and other venues, such as Welcome to Bowen Hills, the debacle that was Mercado luxury marketplace – venues that lasted for a good time, not a long time. Others still, like Peter Gloftis’ Potato Boy and his Northside Coffee Brewers, barely got off the ground before they closed again.
Fat Dumpling, Banoi, La Macelleria and The Lamb Shop have all gone, and the cherished King Street Bakery went the way of star chef Shannon Kellam’s BCN Events Group early last year (although Clem Chauvin later swept in to nab Montrachet after the French restaurant also went into administration – it remains excellent).
Against this backdrop, Queen Amann feels like part of a reset for the strip, and the kind of venue landlords should have been courting in the first place.
A collaboration between NYC Bagel and Superthing’s Ania Kutek and Eddy Tice, and new partner Larry Lim, this slick little patisserie is also very post-pandemic, in that it drills down on one item in particular – the kouign-amann.
“There are a few things [behind that decision],” Lim explains. “We didn’t want to be King Street Bakery again, despite how great it was. We couldn’t be just a bakery. We needed a specific item.
“I researched and couldn’t really find a venue in the world, really, that was specifically for kouign-amann, so we saw a market there.
“The other thing is the branding. We wanted to have a play on a word that would be an ‘a-ha!’ moment for people. It helps them remember it. And it’s also a play on the location, King Street. It’s fun.”
If you’re a baked goods fan, you’ve likely encountered kouign-amann. Originating out of Brittany in the mid-19th century, it’s made from a croissant-like dough with layers of butter and sugar. When baked, the sugar caramelises and the butter expands the dough, resulting in a flaky, layered pastry.
Lim says Queen Amann is technically baking kouignettes – a smaller take on a kouign-amann – in three daily varieties that regularly rotate: expect filling such as pecan and bourbon chocolate, strawberry and chamomile, and blueberry and pistachio.
“You see a lot of trendy cafes doing amanns,” Lim says. “A lot of people are doing circle-shaped versions, but we’re doing more of a classic folded version, with a caramelised bottom.”
Beyond the kouignettes, Queen Amann is serving freshly baked sourdough, a variety of croissants and danishes, and sourdough bagels.
“We’re also doing house-made sausage rolls and pies, which I think people are suddenly switched on to,” Lim says. “We’ve had really good feedback on them, which we’re over the moon about.”
For drinks, Queen Amann peddles Five Senses coffee alongside private label hojicha and matcha, sourced from Japanese cities Kagoshima and Shizuoka respectively.
The shop retains the bones of King Street Bakery but Tice, Kutek and Lim have given it a very different feel. The timber panelling outside is now a deep, inviting shade of turquoise, while the brickwork inside has been whitewashed. It feels less classic and more modern, appropriate for Queen Amann’s contemporary approach.
“We sold out first day,” Lim says. “Everyone was so happy we’d opened … and 100 per cent we’re noticing people starting to come from beyond the precinct.
“It’s funny, Monday to Friday it’s office workers and people who live nearby. But on weekends, maybe people are seeing us on social media because we see a lot of families. It’s a different crowd. Everyone’s happy that there’s a bakery back on King Street.”
Open Mon-Fri 7am-2.30pm, Sat-Sun 7am-2pm
20 King Street, Bowen Hills, instagram.com/queenamannbakery
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Matt Shea 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.
