This is The Naked Baker, a bakery specialising in sweet and savoury pastries, including laminated bakes, filled croissants and focaccia.
Cinnamon Bun ($8.00)
This featured a laminated cinnamon bun spiralled with cinnamon and brown sugar, finished with a vanilla glaze.
The execution was lacklustre. The combination of brown sugar and vanilla glaze made the pastry excessively sweet, while the generous butter content contributed to a heavy, greasy mouthfeel. The laminated structure also appeared poorly risen, resulting in a dense pastry that lacked the lightness expected from this format.
Apple Turnover ($8.50)
This featured laminated pastry folded over cooked apple and custard, finished with a light crumble and icing sugar.
The exterior layers retained an enjoyable crispness, although their thickness made the overall pastry rather doughy. The apple offered pleasant tangy acidity and some residual bite, providing contrast against the creamy sweetness of the custard. However, the two fillings sat alongside one another rather than being distributed in layers, making it difficult to achieve a balanced mouthful containing both components. While individually acceptable, the construction lacked cohesion and the finished turnover was fairly unremarkable.
Everything Focaccini ($10.00)
This featured a focaccia base rimmed with everything bagel seasoning, including garlic, sesame and poppy seeds, topped with pesto, cream cheese, tomato and dill.
The focaccia offered a pleasant chew, with some of the edges developing a crisp crunch. The centre remained tender, although moisture from the toppings made the underlying bread quite soft. The cream cheese helped bring together the pesto and tomato without overwhelming either component. However, the fresh tomato introduced considerable moisture without contributing the concentrated flavour that roasted tomatoes could have provided. Roasting the tomatoes, or using cherry tomatoes to reduce the moisture content while retaining a more concentrated flavour, may have produced a better balance. Overall, the focaccia was competent but lacked a particularly distinctive feature.
Ham & Honey Croissant ($10.50)
This featured a croissant rolled with ham, tasty cheese and honey, topped with pepitas and black and white sesame seeds.
The croissant was adequately laminated, with a visible honeycomb cross-section, although its layers were relatively thick and lacked the depth of richness expected from a well-executed butter croissant, particularly one made with cultured butter. Neither the ham nor the cheese offered much distinction, leaving the filling somewhat ordinary. The honey provided additional sweetness, while the pepitas and sesame seeds contributed welcome crunch and nuttiness, helping to give the otherwise unremarkable croissant some additional textural interest.
Overall, The Naked Baker offered a fairly ordinary selection of sweet and savoury baked goods, with inconsistent laminated pastry construction and little distinction in ingredient quality. The crisp edges and fillings provided occasional points of interest, but these were undermined by excessive sweetness, heavy pastry structures and insufficient flavour integration. None of the items demonstrated the level of execution or distinctive character needed to establish a compelling bakery identity. Would not return.
The Naked Baker is located at 23-29 Addison Rd, Marrickville NSW 2204.