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The Best Country Bakeries in Victoria Serving Nostalgic Bites and Sweet Stories
Discover Victoria’s most beloved country bakeries, where stories and pastries collide beautifully.
Victoria’s backroads are stitched together by bakeries that feel lifted from a storybook: warm ovens humming at dawn, handwritten signs in windows, and pastries that unlock childhood memories in a single bite. From Woodend’s famed vanilla slice to Trentham’s wood-fired heritage loaves, each stop blends local lore with generous, homespun flavour.
Consider this your roadmap to the state’s most irresistible country bakery detours.
Bourkies Bakehouse
Bourkies Bakehouse captures everything that makes a country main street feel special: familiar faces, trays of hot pastries and a vanilla slice so celebrated it now comes in an ube version, believed to be the world’s first. For 35 years, locals have dropped in for sausage rolls, triple-choc cake and easy coffee conversations. It’s a country bakery that gives a town its heartbeat.
1-3/115 High Street, Woodend
Sharp’s Bakery
Sharp’s Bakery is a Mallee icon: a time-capsule shop serving earthy pies, sausage rolls and cakes to generations of locals. Its “snot-block” vanilla slice is a seven-time national champion, and the chatter out front is as warm as the pastries. A bakery where history is sliced fresh each morning.
47 Cumming Avenue, Birchip
RedBeard
RedBeard is a living piece of Victorian baking history. Housed in a 19th-century bakery with a rare 75-ton Scotch oven still in use, it turns out sourdough, scrolls and pastries that smell like tradition itself. The neon sign nods to the owners’ red-haired lineage; the bread still whispers of 1891.
38A High Street, Trentham
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Bridgewater Bakehouse
Bridgewater Bakehouse is the heart of Bridgewater on Loddon; a warm, easy stop where country baking still feels handmade and unrushed. Their pies are proper, generously filled and perfect for a riverside picnic, but it’s the vanilla slice that steals the show. It’s our personal favourite: silky, tall, perfectly custardy and worth every detour off the Calder. A true small-town gem with soul.
6 Main Street, Bridgewater on Loddon
Gaffney’s Bakery
Gaffney’s is a bright country bakery known for chunky beef-and-pepper pies, towering sausage rolls and custard squares that vanish on busy weekends. Regulars claim it as one of regional Victoria’s best. Yellow walls and a breezy courtyard set the tone for a proper country pit stop.
63-65 High Street, Heathcote
Gaffney’s Pie Kitchen
Your one-stop shop for chicken parma pies and lemon tarts so perfectly balanced in creaminess and tartness they rewrite your idea of dessert. The pies across the board are total crowd-pleasers — flaky, generous and available in big-size versions that turn weeknight dinners into a breeze. It’s the ideal little pit-stop en route to a slow weekend by Lake Nagambie.
88 Station Street, Seymour
Gum Tree Pies
A Bright institution, Gum Tree Pies is where road-trippers and mountain locals queue for golden pies stuffed generously with local produce — steak and red wine, curried lamb, pepper steak, steak and Guinness, Thai red chicken, and the cult panang pumpkin pie. Sausage rolls and chorizo numbers come out hot and fast.
10 High Street, Yackandandah
2A Anderson Street, Bright
Unit 1/15 Aurora Way, Wodonga
Parker’s Pies
Parker’s Pies has long been Rutherglen’s comfort-food cornerstone. Locals swear by the Rutherglen Red beef pie, curry pie and the sausage rolls, all made with local grass-fed meat. Custard tarts and the occasional emu pie keep things interesting. Everything tastes better with a spoonful of their homemade chutney.
88 Main Street, Rutherglen
Flora Hill Bakehouse
Flora Hill Bakehouse is beloved for its big-hearted country classics; think chunky pies, soft bread loaves, custard tarts, carrot cake, jam donuts and hedgehog slice. Family-run and fiercely local, it’s a fixture on footy runs, school mornings and weekend routines. A simple, dependable bakery that feeds a community one loaf at a time.
13 Retreat Road, Flora Hill
Piper Street Food Company
Piper Street Food Co. brings a little metropolitan energy to Kyneton, pairing excellent espresso with baked treats, loaded toasties, quiche, and weekend pie specials. Locals gather here for a slow Sunday brunch or a pastry run before hitting the boutiques.
Sitchu Tip: The Portuguese tarts are a local favourite, and they’re bringing British pork pies to the Aussie countryside.
2/89A Piper Street, Kyneton
Freshwater Creek Cake Shop
Freshwater Creek Cake Shop feels like someone’s nan has been given a pastel bakery and a magic wand. We’re talking macadamia cookies, mocha cake, lamingtons and slices that never go out of style. Surfers, families and tradies line up together; it’s the Surf Coast at its sweetest.
650 Anglesea Road, Freshwater Creek
Rochester Bakery
Rochester Bakery hit national fame when its vanilla slice placed third in the 2022 Australia’s Best Vanilla Slice competition. Brothers Phil and David Latter have perfected that dreamy custard. Their steak and kidney pies, jam donuts and sausage rolls keep loyalists driving in off the highway.
46 Moore Street, Rochester
Gornelly’s
Gornelly’s shifts from bakery to wine bar as the day moves on, but its foundations lie in sourdough loaves, croissants, focaccia, great coffee, and a ginger cake people travel for. House-cured meats and local cheeses add to its rustic charm.
196 Barker Street, Castlemaine
Heiner’s Bakery
Heiner’s Bakery has been a Myrtleford staple since 1966, turning out handcrafted breads, pies, cakes, salad rolls and all the country classics from its Standish Street storefront. Locals and travellers drop in for fresh bakes and coffee in a friendly, no-fuss setting built on tradition and proper regional pride. A personal tip from this Melbourne Editor: don’t leave without a beesting or a chicken salad roll — both are formative.
87 Standish Street, Myrtleford
Ket Baker
Ket Baker champions pure sourdough — every loaf, croissant and tart is made without shortcuts. Locals line up for Vienna loaves, seasonal galettes and buttery pastries still warm from the oven. Coastal air, fermenting dough and a daily queue make this a Bellarine essential.
377 Grubb Road, Wallington
Le Comptoir
Le Comptoir blends French craft with Surf Coast ease — crisp baguettes, almond croissants, ANZAC bikkies, apricot danishes and lemon-frangipane tarts that feel made for long weekends. It’s the spot you drift into after a morning on the sand, still carrying a trace of salt and sunshine. And come evening, locals treat it as a treasured dinner secret — worth experiencing twice in a day.
85 Great Ocean Road, Aireys Inlet
Johnny Baker
Johnny Baker is pure Castlemaine charm, a local favourite with two personalities. Downtown buzzes with an open kitchen, turning out buttery pastries, proper pies and small-batch gelato that tastes like summer in a cone. Uptown, tucked behind the Northern Arts Hotel, keeps things simple with classics, baguettes, toasties and Dr Marty’s Crumpets on hand. Both spots feel wonderfully everyday in the best way.
46 Forest Street, Castlemaine
Rear 359 Barker Street, Castlemaine
Whether you’re mapping out a pie crawl or chasing a familiar flavour from years past, Victoria’s country bakeries serve more than pastries; they serve stories. Warm benches, flour-dusted counters, friendly locals and recipes shaped by generations. Follow the scent of fresh bread on your next road trip — every town has a signature bite worth discovering. For more delicious journeys across the state, explore our favourite regional restaurants and the charm-filled jewel that is Trentham.
