The first thing that will strike you on entering Lovells Bakery at Woodside is that they have truly…read moreworked to bring the outside in. The large space is reminiscent of a warehouse and is spaciously furnished with lovely timber outdoor furniture, they have erected a tent like structure on one side to make a pseudo private seating area that seems a little like it could belong to an arabic nomad... or maybe in Australia it is more likely to be a grey nomad with a little extra pizazz. On the other side of the room is a play area, enclosed with benches on each side. What a great idea for mums with bubs! They are definately the budget bakery option on the main drag in woodside, with the loaves priced at just a couple of dollars they offer fantastic value. Fresh rolls, baked goods and sweet treats are available, as well as bakers delight (but better) style pull aparts. I have a feeling all the cream used may be the real deal, but the jury is out until I've managed to get through all they have to offer. Great place for a casual bakery lunch!

This bakery will surprise, spacious, clean and tidy. Most bakery's do not have much room to dine…read moreinside but this bakery has loads of room, with good comfortable eating tables and chairs. The range of pies, bread buns and cakes, to eat in or take away is extensive. We enjoyed two very fresh tasty pies in the restaurant area. The service was excellent, will definitely return.

Glazed donuts, anyone?…read more Or maybe you fancy a gourmet pie instead? Whatever you decide you wont be disappointed, outside of France, this is the best bakery food I've had in my whole entire life. These guys have bread and cakes and pastries that are so good that you have get there at about 11 at the latest if you want a look in, failing that don't even bother. You can eat in or take your magical pastry away with you. I've never eaten in, but then I'm a culprit for buying a box of 9 glazed donuts (why stop at one?) and I don't really want everyone staring at me while I chow down on such a large portion of sugary goodness. Don't be discouraged by the premises, it isn't a fancy bakery, these guys spend more of their time perfecting their baking technique than painting the walls. It's great that I don't have to go all the way to Lobethal to get to the Lobethal Bakery, sometimes people are confused by the name, but there are 3 of these bakeries in total, Woodside/Lobethal/Stirling so take your pick.

The Lobethal Bakery (LB) is a real treat. So much so that I always get a real disappointed feeling…read moreremembering that they're always closed on Sundays. I've been told it's for religious reasons, but I swear it's just to tease the locals so they keep coming back for more. Everything I've tried from this LB (and the associated Woodside outlet) has been uber tasty. I love a good, spicy chilli kranksy and the LB kransky is awesome. The pies are well made, not too hot on your first bite (crucial so as not to ruin the rest of the pie), and the lunch rolls, quiches, pasties, donuts and bread are all high quality. Sometimes it can take a few minutes to get service, but I can't blame other patrons for wanting to load up on LB goodies. One thing I can't get my head around is, why did they franchise the bakery with the name of another town?? 'We're just going down to the Lobethal Bakery to grab a bite. The Lobethal Bakery. In Stirling.' Que??! Besides that minor grammatical annoyance/anomaly, and as mentioned above the fact they're always closed on Sundays, I can't really fault this place. It is next to the Stirling public car park which makes it usually easy to find a very close park, and it's a 50metre walk from the Main Street. Going for a stroll this time of year in Stirling is worth braving the mild cold weather. Autumn is a beautiful season here. Just pack a jumper, gloves and some serviettes to wipe away those tasty LB crumbs!

Whilst riding through the hills we stopped in for some sustinence…read more This bakery has a great selection of pastries, pies, and breads. They also serve coffee and cold drinks. Tried some pies which were great. The coffee on the other hand not so good. Long black and a flat white. Both were very hot (excessively so), barely existent crema, leading me to suspect they were brewed rather than espresso. The bakery had ample indoor seating and a large parking area immediately outside. Good stop for a quick bite. Recommend the pies, perhaps avoid the coffee unless you find yourself with a significant need for caffeine supplementation

I just finished reviewing Lovells Bakery in Woodside (Adelaide Hills). They are the worst! But…read moredon't despair, the best is just down the road in lovely downtown Lobethal. The Lobethal Bakery on Main Street is the first of four branches in the area and my vote is 5 stars. I am visiting from Austin, Texas, and it's a great city with lots to recommend it. However, with all the bakeries we have there (many), none that I know of is as good as the one in Lobethal. My Aussie sweetie and I have sampled most of their breads and a passel of their meat pies and desserts. Nary a one of them failed to please. Try their pasties. Sample those gorgeous pastries. Definitely don't miss a loaf of their multigrain Black Forest bread. Friendly counter staff, clean surroundings, tasty food, and good value for your Aussie dollars. 5 stars for sure. Fair Warning: these folks are busy and can sell out of some of their popular breads by mid-afternoon, so try not to show up late. But DO show up. You'll be glad you did. P.S. We have also patronized the Woodside location and found it similarly pleasing. I expect the other two locations are also worth visiting. PPS. I forgot what my sweetie had to offer about their wares ... "Their pastries are always wonderful; light and flaky and wickedly delicious." I can only agree.

Your Choice Bakery sits at the Athelstone Shopping Village, on the side of Gorge Road as you head…read moreout to the hills. They offer the expected range you'd find in any bakery - bread, rolls, sausage rolls and pies, donuts and eclairs, etc. They do, however, have one huge claim to fame - their sign touts the best apple pies in Adelaide, and they could just have that one down pat. Don't get me wrong, everything else is good - but yes, those apple pies are spectacular.

As soon as I walked in the door of this humble-looking establishment, I was confident that I'd get…read moresomething good. It was tidy, and there were no trestle tables piled high with plastic-bagged buns and dodgy doughnuts. Furthermore, the range of goods was not too extensive; they're sticking with what they know they can do, which increases the odds of all of us getting a tasty treat. I bought a sliced wholemeal loaf, a veg pasty - their last one, a mini custard-filled chocolate-glazed Berliner, and a mini standard jam-filled Berliner with pink icing (they did have the full-sized versions, but I like to start slow and get to know my pastries). My gastronomic medicine bundle came to a very reasonable $11.50. Whoever's in the kitchen of this bakery has a dab hand and fine palate, because neither of the Berliners were sickly sweet. It's harder than it looks to make mini versions of these things too; it's fiddly, and when you add a custard or jam fill, and then glaze, you always run the risk of overdoing sugar and balance of flavours. Not so these folks, I could taste all of it. What is more, and I still don't believe my good fortune, the glazes/icing had flavour! I haven't enjoyed a proper chocolate doughnut with a decent glaze in eons. At the last bakery I visited, the attendant responded 'pink or brown?' when I asked for a doughnut. I so wanted to walk out. Thankfully 'pink or brown' isn't in the Your Choice vocabulary. Their glaze tasted like chocolate, and aesthetically it was nothing like that brown roof-tile cement that seems to be everywhere nowadays. I love being compensated for my losses, and these puffy little fried dough balls did just that. The chocolate glaze had a nice texture too: the icing was soft but set, and the colour of it resembled a high-end ganache. Don't get me wrong, when I walk into a nice little bakery like this, I don't expect Valrona 80% gently melted down in a double-boiler and then emulsified by organic Jersey cream--yummy--but that's not what I want. I want what I paid for: that bakery of yesteryear chocolate essence, maybe with a little generic cocoa added, you know, the doughnuts you had when you were a kid, with icing that stuck to the brown paper bag, and to your lips when you ate them in three or four gulps. You'll get the brown paper bags at Your Choice, and a memorable icing that tastes like it should. You will also get a custard filling that's generous, smooth, again not sickly sweet, and it has just enough vanilla flavour. The dough was fried to perfection, nicely browned and nutty on the outside, light and cooked through on the inside. The standard Berliner was likewise perfect. The pink icing actually had a subtle strawberry flavour, the jam had a distinct raspberry taste, and there was a good squeeze of it in the bun, but not so much that you end up with it all over your face and collar if you go in hard! The wholemeal bread's good, and so was the pasty. I liked the visual appeal of the pasty and the pastry; it wasn't too greasy and didn't leave a film on the roof of my mouth. I think that the filling needs a little work though. I'm pretty sure it had cheese in it, and I'm not a big fan of cheese in pasties (unless they're spinach). Adding cheese typically results in a saltier filling, and it undoes the textural joy of eating a great pasty. The best pasties also have a little swede or turnip, trombone, and sweet pumpkin to complement the potatoes. The other problem with adding cheese relates more to commercial and marketing considerations. You lose all of your vegan clientele, and they appreciate having a break from having to cook all of the time to get good clean food. Vegetarians also get tired of people just adding cheese to everything. Contrary to popular belief, most vegetarians don't rely on cheese for their protein and vegans of course don't. The best bet is to make a damn fine fresh veg pasty. Your Choice is halfway there because they have great pastry, they're clean, and they know how to cook. They could roll the dice like Yankalilla Bakery did the last time I was there and offer both a cheese pasty and a plain veg pasty. However, if your margins are low (you're in food in 2018 so that's a given) and you don't have the seaside tourist trade, keep it simple and seasonal. Your Choice should just reinvent the pasty they've already got. Overall, 4 out of 5 stars. If it were down only to the Berliners: an easy 5 for 5. Next time, I'm going to get my hands on their Bienenstich. I wanted one this time around but they were sold out, by MIDDAY! That fact alone speaks volumes about how good these illusive Beestings will probably be.

Ok, Well I always love a good bakery, but wow this takes the cake, pardon the pun…read more I tried the Chunky steak, bacon and cheese pie and it was to die for, the pastry was soft, but flaky, the cheese perfect and runny, the best review I can give this pie and is the fact that my "almost" vegetarian girlfriend, who absolutely hates any meat pie, practically stole the pie after tasting just the crust, and I ended up walking back and buying another and while I was there, an apple and custard tart for the drive home I live 45 minutes away and would consider driving here for dinner just because it's that good The best part is that it looks just like a typical country bakery from outside, right down to the squeaky screen door. If you like baked goods, do yourself a favour, go for a quick drive up the freeway, and you won't look back

Otto's is yet another reason for me to travel to Hahndorf…read more There are lots of top choices in Hahndorf for a decent feed for lunch, but I find it hard to go past Otto's for a pie and a cake. Service is really good, and it can get really busy here. We usually get our food to go, and eat it in the park.

On a recent trip to Hahndorf, we spent a while walking through Main Street to find a nice place to…read moreget an ice cream - which is when we came across Farmgate Providore. Walking inside there where tables and tables of brownies, truffles, small cakes and even a few chocolate fountains (I was in heaven!). Although, I did find it odd that most of the cakes were just on tables without covers on them - so really anyone could touch the cakes etc. We paid for our ice cream inside, and then went out to the ice cream fridge at the front of the store. For $7.50 for a two scoop waffle cone, I was expecting a certain amount of ice cream. However, I was disappointed with the serving size - it was not good value for money. I ordered caramel and ferrero rocher ice cream which - as a self confessed sweet tooth - was a pretty average ice cream. Overall, there were lots and lots of nice looking sweets, but I won't visit Farmgate Providore again in a hurry.

We got up early to hit the touristy Hahndorf strip on our holiday in Adelaide and by the time we…read morereached there, I needed to be caffeinated, stat. If only I'd walked another block further and found the beautiful Caffiend in time. Alas. Farmgate Providore, your coffee was on par with McCafe, and whatever that german cream tit I ate was exactly, it was not worth the $7 I paid for it. We also dove into the "four boxes of strawberries for $10" bargain, which we definitely should have had second thoughts about, because two days later at least 2/3 of them were bruised and sad. Sigh. Tourist traps, you caught us good.

There are places where you walk in and feel right at home, and there are places that love that you…read morehave chosen to eat here instead. The latter was so for the Kaffeehaus. It was a clearly popular choice by many locals and travellers alike, and listening to the banter of locals was entertainment enough. There is loads of space and the food is great, and this will still be a place I enjoy popping into in the future.

We visit Harndorf frequently, and usually just pass by this cafe. Is pretty unassuming from the…read morefootpath. We were going to Beeswax next door (fantastic products), but they had a back in 10 mins sign on door. So we went inside for a coffee, the range of homemade cakes, food and coffees were authentic, delicious, attractive and featured real cream. Coffee was good. These were the nicest cakes I've seen in Harndorf. We will certainly return for their signature German fare.

This is, hands down, the best bread I have ever tasted. The cheapest loaves go for seven bucks, so…read moreit's no bargain, but hey I did just say it's the best bread I've ever tasted, right? All of the loaves are baked according to a traditional sourdough process that involves a long fermentation. It's thick and moist, always soft and even after a few days in the pantry not crusty. It's deliciously moreish, you just want to have piece after piece. It feels like a waste using it for sandwiches or toast. You can't buy directly from the outlet, so don't bother driving up to Mylor. The family-run business stocks their bread in a few stores in the hills, WIlson's in town, a few IGA's and at the Mount Barker's farmer's markets. For a full list, check out the downloads list on their website. At around ten bucks a pop - depending which outlet you buy it from - the pumpkin and olive loaf is definitely on the pricey end. But it is worth it - a special treat. Last time I bought a loaf, I ate it by myself in a day and a half. Have it with dip or just with a little bit of olive oil. This is my favourite of their loaves - delicious meaty olives in a vivid orange bread. Other great loaves include: plain sourdough, wholemeal sourdough, seeds sourdough, light rye, dark rye and caraway rye. Oh and fruit loaf lovers will adore Mylor fruit loaf - it's closer to Christmas cake than bread. Halved figs, apricots, raisons, ginger, honey, orange and spice. My only criticism was I once tried a new fruit loaf flavour combination that wasn't quite as perfected as the other Mylor breads - but hey, it was still better than most of the other bread I've ever had before.

The smallest bakery in the Adelaide Hills, and this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The one big…read morenegative is being closed on Mondays but this is shared with a few other local businesses so it is forgivable. Being smaller, their range is limited, but there are two stand out products I almost always purchase here; the "pie of the month" and the chocolate eclair. The pie of the month is always something interesting, my personal favourite so far was some sort of lemon chicken. Delicious. The chocolate eclair is nothing really that amazing, it's just the most perfectly executed eclair you'll find in any Adelaide Hills bakery. It's small, with nice chocolate, what I'm almost certain is real cream and pastry that is crisp without being flaky or stale. This bakery is not a Café bakery, and I think this is perfectly okay.

I love the vegetarian pasties from here. Filling is great and the pastry isn't heavy. My partner…read morereally likes their curry pies too. Worth travelling the extra distance (a few times) to get them.