Follow the queue past the smash repair shop to order cinnamon scrolls, fancy carrot cake and mushroom focaccia at Foli in Campsie.
One of Sydney’s most exciting new bakeries is hidden between a smash repair shop and an empty warehouse in the Campsie industrial precinct. Despite the unconventional location, there are more than 10 people queuing outside Foli Bakery Production Studio at 10am on Sunday morning.
Foli is the latest venture from the team behind Darlinghurst wine bar Theeca, and led by Korean head baker Yewon “Yenny” Yung. It’s part French, part Japanese, and a little Korean, serving precision-baked goods that are just as beautiful as they are delicious.
I wait about 15 minutes, surrounded by families with small children and fluffy dogs, before reaching the small glass pastry cabinet on the front counter. There are little rectangular slices of carrot cake with house-made carrot jam and carefully piped frosting; towers of cookies filled with pistachio nuts and raspberries; and golden loaves of pumpkin ciabatta bread.
But I’m here for the cinnamon and cardamom scrolls ($9.50), still warm from the oven and brushed with a cream cheese frosting. I order one with a slice of truffle mushroom focaccia ($11.50) and a house-made soda flavoured with bergamot and ruby grapefruit ($9.50).
There’s also specialty coffee, using beans from Melbourne roastery St. Ali, and high-grade matcha, but I’d already reached the limit of my daily caffeine intake.
Yung knows what she’s doing: she studied at the Institut National de la Boulangerie Patisserie in France before working at world-renowned bakeries Tartine and Garuharu in Korea.
But at Foli, Yung has greater creative freedom. Eunseok Lee, who co-owns the bakery with Taeho Kang and Junsoo Park, says it’s more of a research and development facility – somewhere to trial new ideas and recipes before opening a bakery-restaurant in a heritage building in Darlinghurst later this year.
That site will have about 80 seats, functioning as a cafe and bakery by day and a casual Japanese restaurant with soba noodles and sake at night. The group hopes it will open before Christmas.
For now, Lee recommends trying the traditional Japanese shio pan, otherwise known as salt bread, to understand what Foli is about. The amber-coloured puffs of buttery white bread are rolled into the shape of a croissant – warm, simple and lightly seasoned – and made with single origin flour from Provenance Flour and Malt in New England.
“We like to compare it with a croissant because croissants symbolise a maximalist approach to baking – it’s a very complex process of lamination, with perfect layers and structure,” Lee says.
“In contrast, shio pan is structurally minimalist, so you can really sense the depth of flavour and taste all the ingredients. The more you chew, the more the flavours of butter and wheat rise to the surface. It’s beautiful.”
Foli’s commitment to minimalism echoes throughout the cafe, with white walls, wood bench seating and a rice paper lamp hanging from the ceiling. There are Japanese ceramics for sale, and in the morning, the entire space is bathed in sunlight. Despite the surroundings, the space feels calm.
So, is Foli worth the wait? Yes. In a city where a new boutique bakery opens almost every week, Foli does things differently – taking popular products such as carrot cake and cinnamon scrolls, and reimagining them through the lens of a Japanese-French bakery.
Foli Bakery Production Studio
32A Harp Street, Campsie, instagram.com/folibakery
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Bianca Hrovat – Bianca is Good Food’s Sydney eating out and restaurant editor.