Customers keep flocking to B85 Artisan Bakery for its exquisite baked goods including croissants, sweet treats and sourdough.
When you arrive at B85 Artisan Bakery, housed at the rear of an outdoor plaza of shops in Camden’s main street, head chef Kim Fulko Lim is often visible.
Working in a small stretch of bench area behind ovens, fridges, tiers of baking trays and a glass-walled, temperature-controlled room, a small fan keeps him cool as he studies trays of dough with intent.
At other times, he is inside the glass room, customers watching from outside, laying a long metal ruler across a smooth pane of croissant pastry before cutting widths by the millimetre. An exacting tailor cutting satin.
Camden locals, queuing for his croissants, baguettes, focaccia, caramel millefeuille, burnt Basque cheesecake, sourdough loaves and more, hail him hello. Without fail, he greets them back.
Often, depending on the position of his cutting knife, or the cooking stage of a bombolini, custard flan, creme brulee danish or triple chocolate pain Suisse, Fulko Lim comes out and has a chat.
“The regulars are very loyal,” he says, later. “We wouldn’t be here without them.”
B85, which opened in 2022 and is named after Kim’s birth year, inspires enormous passion in Camden and surrounding suburbs and towns.
Most days, the bakery’s entire range of baked goods, particularly the seeded, white rye, fruit, white, baguette and olive and rosemary sourdough, is gone before trading ends.
Today, on a Friday in summer, a woman arrives five minutes before the front door is locked to collect her pre-booked seeded sourdough.
“You won’t get this anywhere else,” she says, clutching the loaf like a long-lost child and addressing Rene Fulko Lim, B85’s co-owner and Kim’s wife side the counter. “You really are our saving grace.”
Rene, who is holding the couple’s just-born second child, thanks her with a broad smile. She and Kim know everyone.
“It’s a community-based business bakery,” Kim says. “People feel comfortable coming and asking for tips, getting help on bread or whatever. I get people asking for my sourdough starter, buying flour from me. Trying to be there for the community is a big, big part of it.”
Another part is Kim’s attention to detail and focus on traditional French and Italian baking methods.
A chef by trade, he began teaching himself bread and pastry techniques from social media in 2011.
He started working at Black Star Pastry with Christopher The in 2016 followed by Maggio’s Italian Bakery and Pasticceria in Cammeray. After recovering from back surgery, he founded B85 in Camden in 2022.
A winning move here is arriving early, bagging a beautifully crunchy seeded sourdough loaf and a baguette, before staying for coffee (Little Marionette) and a dedicated two-course banquet of savoury goods followed by sweet.
Start with a splendid ham and fermented chilli baguette, an oozing croque monsieur or smashed avocado, feta and dukkah on sourdough. The clincher is Kim’s bread – light, airy, the sourdough with a lovely tanginess and chewiness. Make sure to eat all the crusts.
If available, follow this with a head-swimmingly delicate caramel millefeuille, an intense passionfruit meringue croissant and a buttery mango coconut danish, the latter architecturally layered with coconut cream, financier, mango and cremeux chantilly cream under fresh mango and coconut jelly.
I would walk through a hot desert to eat Kim’s focaccia – either olive, confit garlic and rosemary; confit tomatoes, olives, capers and oregano or potato and rosemary – and, if it’s the weekend, a variety of special croissant cubes are available.
Obtaining past cubes – including the pistachio and raspberry cube – made with croissant pastry, rolled in sugar and filled with raspberry cremeux, pistachio praline, with pistachio whipped white chocolate garnish – or the strawberry yuzu cube – may not be guaranteed but pitch a tent outside on Saturday or Sunday to snare Kim’s next specials.
You’ll see him working on, among other exquisite things, his current obsession. “Every day I’m challenging myself,” he says. “To try to get the perfect baguette.”
The low-down
Vibe: South-west bakery offering exquisite baked goods including sourdough, pastries and savoury food
Go-to dish: Ham and fermented chilli baguette, a loaf of sourdough and a croissant cube
Cost: $25-$50 for two, plus drinks
Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox.
