To Be Frank Bakery — Restaurant in Melbourne

Our daughter bought some croissants home for us as a treat.

Unfortunately, when we opened the bag all 3 croissants were very badly burnt. Not just a little over cooked, but burnt black. One bite, and they tasted burnt. All 3 went in the bin. She was still charged full price for something that really should have been binned at your end.

Let me be very frank - we won't be back to this ripoff joint.

• Response to owner (because I can't reply below) *

Wow - just wow.

You say you don't sell burnt croissants to rip people off, so why do you sell them? I do not believe for a second that the person putting these croissants into the bag did not know they were badly burnt. So whatever the reason, you were selling burnt croissants.

You say we should have come back to you. We live 13 km from your shop. A 26 km return trip for 3 croissants that should never have been sold in the first place simply isn't a viable option.

I don't know what a 'bomb' review is, but this is an honest review. Check my other reviews, some are good and some are not. Clearly I do not regularly give false bad reviews if that is what you are implying.

I am not sure what impact this review will have on your business. Hopefully it will alert people to check the bag before leaving the shop so they don't have the same experience as us. However, your reponse in which you choose to dismissively attack me for leaving the review rather than deal with the actual issue of selling burnt croissants will do far more damage to your business...

The pastries are heavenly and rivals the best of Melbourne - think Lune, All Are Welcome etc. Each time I’ve been, we’ve ordered about 8-9 different pastries. They are in the true sense of the word, a proper boulangerie. But if I’m going to pay nearly $7 for a coffee, I don’t think it’s too much to expect a proper barista made coffee with a microfoam. The bean and roast itself is fine, perhaps I should have ordered a long black instead. Anyway. Their range of savoury laminated pastries is really impressive. They don’t just focus on the sweets. One of the coolest things about this bakery is their exposed back end and the super awesome 5 layered oven… oh and of course the graffiti. Little story here: I ordered two babyccinos, they’re usually served with a sweet treat like a marshmallow or cookie or something. They ran out of baby cups, fine. Served them in paper cups. Fine. Came without the sweet treat and their response was “oh I’m sorry if I had them I’d give them to you”. It’s like going for a Japanese meal and ordering a rice which typically comes with miso and saying “oh we don’t have or we’ve run out of miso, if I had some I’d give it to you”. This seems to be heading down the route of Melbourne establishments getting a bit too much up themselves and forgetting it’s the F&B / service industry. I hope it doesn’t. The boulangerie goods here are really bloody good. I’m giving it three stars but would’ve four if not for that coffee because...

📍To Be Frank, Collingwood

Okay, this may be my favourite bakery in Melbourne. I was blown away by how many delicious options they had here (and from lots of different cultures too!!), making it so so hard to choose options.

In the end we got a pepper and goats cheese twist (delicioussss), an eggplant and tahini scroll (also so so yum), a brown sugar kouign-Amann (a French pastry that was great, I bloody love brown sugar) and an Argentinian pastry with dulce de leche (yum but I just don’t think I love dulche de leche too much, but the pastry had sooo many layers!!). I am more of a savoury gal so loved them more, but it was all fantastic. The coffee was also delicious and they had incredible foccacia that I am dying to try.

Limited seating here is all, but that’s just because it’s so popular (and for good reason!!).

Overall 4.6...