13 of the best bakeries with cafés to linger in
Published 13 April 2026

Founded by Singaporean restaurateur Ellen Chew and French-born patissier Alix André, this bakery and café started life as a Soho pop-up before putting down roots in the heart of Covent Garden in 2020. East Asian flavours weave their way into a display counter of dazzlingly good-looking treats from hotdog croissants with Japanese BBQ sauce to miso bacon escargots and 'gula melaka' coconut buns. The honey butter toast – a take on Japanese shokupan (milk bread) – is a must-order. A second outlet can now be found on Duke Street in Marylebone, and a third outlet is due to open on Shaftesbury Avenue in 2026.

Having earned a glowing reputation making bespoke bakes for Sheffield’s top coffee shops, the team behind Bakers Yard have opened their own café in a quiet corner of Kelham Island. The signature rum canelés are superb, as are the white chocolate, pistachio and lemon cookies, and the salted whey caramel and chocolate ganache tarts. Savoury bakes also change constantly, but do order the vadouvan-spiced potato and Baron Bigod cheese pie if it’s on offer. Lunch specials generally showcase vegetables – our favourite is an assembly of garlic-roast purple sprouting broccoli, cavolo nero, romesco, pickled chillies, spicy roast almonds on toasted sourdough. Outdoor seating is basic, but great for sunny days.

By Wednesday each week, the Beefcake Café's Facebook page reveals the eclectic delights that will be available to eat in or take away from Thursday to Sunday (10am-2pm). The owners have an obsession with sourdoughs and a passion for pastry, and this very personal business sells out fast. Their regular menu of filled floury baps brimming with breakfast or brunch, loaded sourdough toasts and viennoiserie is supplemented by the likes of sweetcorn fritters with avocado and poached egg, while pies might bring bold combos such as butternut squash with oyster mushroom and halloumi. Otherwise, their perfectly laminated croissant-based options are supplemented by ever-changing danishes (think pear, blackberry and tonka bean). There's bread, of course, and the place is licensed too.

Deeply embedded within the Queen’s Park community, you’ll find this bakery-by-day, restaurant-by-night buzzing from first thing on a Monday morning. And rightly so. The quality and originality of the goods from head baker Keren Sternberg is outstanding. Just try turning down the gorgeously glossy brown-butter maple challah doughnuts or the buttery crackle of a bergamot sfogliatella. There are also freshly baked sandwiches for weekday lunches or pies at the weekend, and you could do worse than relax into the low-lit good looks of evening service for a seasonal small-plates supper.

There’s a perma-queue at the counter at this bakery and café beneath Hackney's railway arches but it moves quickly and you’ll soon find yourself at a table with your coffee and a bun. Take a laptop or stylish baby if you want to look the part. The baking is exceptional, both in terms of skills and ingredients: their croissants, for example, are made using three different types of heritage flour, stoneground on site and laminated with raw cultured butter. The menu changes constantly but currant buns, florentines and rye cookies are constants. For something more substantial, choose soup, a sourdough sandwich or a seasonal special. There are outlets in Poplar and, from May 2025, in Hackney Wick.

The golden croissant-shaped door handle sets the tone of this glossy bakery and café before you've even stepped inside. Fred's Oxford Circus outpost, opened in 2025 and complementing the original in Holborn, has earned its place on the social circuit – though its merits run far deeper than influencer aesthetics. Butter-laden bakes are a portal to the streets of Paris at their finest; a decadent tiramisu bun tempts the sweet-toothed, but it's the cinnamon buns, baked fresh throughout the day and served still warm, that stopped us in our tracks.

Anna Gerrans and Nat Galliano-Hale’s bakery opened as a wholesale business in 2021, supplying sourdough to cafés and restaurants. But a weekly counter selling baked goods directly to the public quickly built up a following and, such was the demand, the couple moved to a larger retail space in 2023, allowing them to incorporate a café alongside the on-view bakery. Meticulously baked sourdough loaves, viennoiserie and updated versions of classics such as Danish pastries (with fillings like coffee crème patisserie, whipped cream and dark chocolate crumb) give locals good reason to keep coming back. As an added attraction, there are also eclectic savouries along the lines of bone broth with a carrot kimchi toastie.

Filipino and Korean bakes are the order of the day at this handsome little bakery on Cherry Hinton Road. Tuck into matcha cream buns, a riff on Basque cheesecake made with ube (purple yam) or pillowy ensaymada pastries filled with buttercream and topped with a drift of mild cheese. Savouries grace the counter from mid-morning, so keep an eye out for egg sandos with kimchi butter and sesame, or tuna mayo focaccia with a sprinkle of sweetcorn. Grab a seat inside to enjoy a bake with coffee, or enjoy a strawberry matcha latte on one of the pavement tables when the weather's fine. 

Since opening in central Bath in 2018, Andrew Lowkes’ independent, community-focused bakery has expanded to become a city institution. Locals are obsessed with the sourdough loaves, made with speciality grains sourced directly from local farmers and milled at the bakery’s own granite stone mill some 20 miles south, near Evercreech. And good luck with getting out without at least one cardamom bun, hazelnut praline cream bun or fennel-studded sausage roll. While it never stops being a bakery, Landrace is also a treasured all-day resource – operating as a ground-floor daytime café (the coffee is excellent), while the space above is home to the excellent GFG-rated restaurant Upstairs at Landrace, headed by chef Rob Sachdev.

Chef and pastry buff Jamie Heffey returned to his love of baking post-lockdown and, after selling out at farmers' markets in the early days, has made a roaring success with his fully fledged patisserie north of the city centre. The unit might look basic but the fastidious attention to detail delivers seriously good bakes. Dessert flavours ranging from Black Forest gâteau to tiramisu define a sweet-toothed line-up of danishes and cruffins, but you’ll also find seasonal savoury twists, fish-finger butties, chicken Caesar sandwiches and Pastille's beloved breakfast baps.

Few spots in Manchester can match the joy of a sunny Saturday morning at Pollen – especially the OG Ancoats site that started it all (a second can be found at Kampus). Bag a canal-side seat, settle in with a well-crafted coffee and take your pick from a glossy, caramelised Breton-style kouign-amann or a perfectly laminated croissant. The team's longstanding commitment to quality ingredients and technical precision produces bakes that punch well above their weight. A destination worth every minute of waiting in the queue.

Forming part of a business collective comprising an art gallery and wine bar with live music at the weekends, Owen Postgate’s bakery-café takes up most of the space at this hugely popular warehouse conversion. It’s all about quality, with provenance to the fore – everything is sourced as locally as possible, from fruit and vegetables to the grain used in the baking. Everyone praises the ‘divine’ pastries: the cardamom buns are a daily sell-out and there are ‘absolutely delicious’ seasonal Danishes (we enjoyed an orange crème version). On the savoury side, don’t miss the homemade pickles, ferments and salads or the Neapolitan-style fior di latte, pesto and pepperoni pizza from the huge pizza oven. There's an offshoot café on Whittox Lane. 

It’s not hard to understand the appeal of this standalone bakery across the courtyard from the White Horse pub. With a charming beamed and stone-walled interior – plus a winter-warming wood-burner and pretty, partially covered terrace seating – it’s clearly popular with a local crowd. The daytime fare is exactly what you would expect: breakfasts of Clarence Court poached eggs with local thick-cut ham on sourdough or croissants filled with smoked salmon and cream cheese, plus excellent pain au chocolat, almond croissants, Danish pastries and very good coffee. Lunch brings home-baked focaccia filled with roast pork and apple sauce or a Walsingham Cheddar and ham toastie. Don’t forget to pick up a baguette, some rye bread or a sourdough loaf when you leave.