Mary Street Bakery — Restaurant in Highgate

Just before 11am on a Friday is a little late for the brunch set and a bit early for the lunch crowd, but the bakery still hums with conversation. There are quieter cafes on Beaufort St to while away a weekday off, but this is no hidden gem - Mary Street Bakery has a formidable reputation and the customer base to prove it.

The oddly multilevel interior breaks up the seating area, creating a sense of cosiness in a space otherwise light and airy with large windows and high ceilings. A mezzanine level hosts the till and the displays of bread and pastries, keeping the bustle of the counter above the seated patrons. I haven't decided yet if I want to dine in on a pastry, so I head up the stairs to check out the day's selection before taking a seat.

After settling in at a table by the window, the attentive waitstaff bring water and a menu, and take my coffee order. The bakery doesn't have mugs for large coffees, but a self-indulgent part of me is pleased; I love the Tiffany & Co blue take-away cups but rarely get coffees to go from Mary Street.

Having missed breakfast, I decide bacon and eggs are in order. The friendly waitperson who comes over to take my order patiently explains slow cooked eggs for me (sous-vide in their shells at 63° for 45 minutes, they are cooked through but extremely runny - and no, you don't have to wait 45 minutes for them). The eggs, when they arrive, are served with salt and pepper on toasted, buttered slices of Mary Street Bakery's moorish sour dough. I honestly have no idea how the chef gets the eggs out of their shells without breaking the fragile white - at barely the touch of my knife there is gloriously golden yolk spilling out. This is the kind of simple dish that only impresses when done with skill and quality ingredients, and I'm definitely impressed. The perfectly cooked side of bacon (ordered extra crispy, though whether this is actually crispier than normal I have no idea; considering I detest undercooked bacon I generally err on the side of caution) is relegated to breaks between mouthfuls of egg and toast, lest the bacon overpower the subtler dish. My only complaint would be that the provided butter knife makes cutting through the chewy sough dough crust rather a struggle; even a mildly serrated edge would be useful.

All in all a satisfying meal, but I can't leave without one of the things Mary Street Bakery is possibly most famous for these days - donuts. After the donut craze of recent years, Perth started paying attention to the gourmet, made in-house donuts at our cafes and the bakery has been showing up on 'must-try donuts' lists ever since. There are always several different varieties on offer, but I settle on a salted caramel filled donut to take away. Once I've got some room for it I dig in and somehow, despite my high expectations, I'm still pleasantly surprised. The donut is light and fluffy, more pastry-like than the doughy-tasting things generally served up by lesser bakeries. The salted caramel is actually salted, no half-assed jumping on the bandwagon here, and there is A LOT of it. I have genuinely never seen a donut with so much filling before. Caramel craving sated, I'm glad I took it home to eat - no one makes it through a donut that filled without...

Whoa this has just been my experience at Mary Street Bakery. Now that I have read google reviews I can understand the words sour and disrespectful to describe the staff. Innocently went in to grab a couple of takeaway coffees. After ordering my young daughter (9) and I are waiting by the side of the counter with our backs to the main eating area holding in our hands the german sausages (hotdogs) that we just bought down the road a surly large bearded person accosted my young daughter and I and declared that he was not the owner however he told me one of the owners did not want any people coming into the cafe holding outside food. I told him we were just waiting for our takeaway coffee and shouldn't be long. He continued to make an issue of the sausage (funny word) He tried to force me to put them into one of their large bakery bags and I told him no. There was a wait on our coffee and as he was so fixated on our german hot dogs (they did look delicious) that he made a point of going to the barista to complete our coffee order so we would leave. I was so upset by his condescending, aggressive harrassment that I left the cafe in tears. He then followed my daughter and I as we left the cafe saying we had been unfair as I had told him that he was a horrible peson and we lived in a democracy and he was behaving like a fascist. Beware this may happen to you when you are out on a Saturday morning hoping to have a nice day. Bearded RUDE and arrogant petty people that have NO understanding of hospitality that work in the hospitality industry he tried as hard as he could to ruin our day. Shame on you for behaving so ridiculously. DO NOT PATRONISE THIS...

Extremely rude staff, I ordered the side of tomatoes and cheese and specifically asked for no cheese (lactose intolerant) had a discussion with the staff about it, when it came out with my food they hadn't taken the cheese off, I politely let the waitress know and she apologised and said she'd fix it, we were told it would be a half hour wait (on a Monday at 11) to get a table it was an hour and a half before we were seated with food in front of us (only 2 people) 20 minutes later the tomatoes came out and the rest of my food was stone cold, while I was waiting for the tomatoes though the man who took our order came over and said "so you don't want the cheese now" and walked off, I couldn't believe how rude he was, I had made it clear that I didn't want the cheese from the start, when we went up to pay I asked why there was a cappuccino on my bill as I hadn't ordered one and the same staff member who had been rude said "I charged you for that instead of the side (obviously talking about the tomatoes) but I can charge you the extra $8 if you want" in an extremely rude tone again, I asked to speak to the manager and spoke to the owner and let him know what has happened, he said it was a busy stressful day and offered us anything from the bakery, still left very unsatisfied, paid $32 for cold toast, one cold egg, cold bacon and eventually some...