Humble Bakery - Surry Hills — Restaurant in Sydney

We have visited the restaurant Porteño before and loved it, so you can imagine our excitement when we hear they’ve opened a bakery next door to their restaurant in Surry Hills, called Humble.

Can we say, there’s no need to be humble when talking of this place, because it deserves the accolades. It has an impressive range of baked goods to go, or food to dine in, as well as coffee and gelato.

We’re there spot on opening time and grab a pigs head sausage roll straight out of the oven. The piping hot sausage (from LP’s meats) is encased in a buttery pastry and this is absolutely delicious and worth a try. Don’t bother for tomato sauce for its perfect without.

We also try a bowl of their honey roasted granola, served with yoghurt, fruits and it is certainly a generous serving and a darn good granola. We can’t go past a good croissant, so we try a lovely plain croissant and the absolutely incredible pecan, whisky, maple croissant. Outstanding, and you can see and feel the generous topping over the croissant, so much so it weighs down the pastry itself. What a treat!

If you’re there for lunch, there are a range of sandwiches, whether it be ham, gruyere and zucchini butter pickle, and eggplant parmigiana with fresh mozzarella, so it’s perfect for vegetarians as well. The lunch menu also has salad bowls served with bread or rice.

Sweets adorn the top of the counter with the likes of a golden Basque cheesecake, a flan and apricot tart, upside down cake or finger bun to name a few.

In addition, we see dough rising in the huge ovens and loves of freshly made bread behind the counter ready to buy. White sourdough, ciabatta and baguettes are available and from 10 am there’s also a range of focaccias. Sadly we were a bit early for that, so we’ll be back to try them another time in addition to the lunch menu.

A brilliant bakery and a good addition...

I have tried a few different things here and to be honest the taste and quality is certainly above average. The biggest disappointment is their organisational skills. The queues aren't controlled or organised and you have to wait for 30-40 mins even if you want to have brunch or some pastry or just to grab a loaf of bread. The counter needs two different sections, one to give takeaway and coffee from and other to give warm/hot or brunch stuff to people. The other day I asked the lady for a nectarine doughnut and Danish and after I paid for it , she just forgot about the order. Then someone came along who knew the person serving us and they got their takeaway stuff( exactly what I had ordered) at the same time when they paid , meanwhile I am still waiting in the corner for my stuff. Unfortunately, this i have observed past three or four times. If you know someone behind the counter , you see guaranteed to get your takeaway almost immediately. I feel they need to work on their queuing process and their efficiency along either time and resource management skills. Certainly has the potential of being a good bakery and brunch space but these are huge downs for me personally. lavie & belle bakery and Bourke street bakery are equally busy if not more, but the system they have, works. With the current scenario, those two places are going to be tough to beat I suppose. I'll give them a couple more shots but for now it only makes sense to go there when they aren't busy or unless you know your mate is working...

ignore the star rating - i didnt actuay get to try the food! there was a long line and once i realised why - not because it was insanely busy but because of the style of service they had decided (maybe?) to deploy. i intend this review to be constructive because i have worked in hospo for over a decade and i intimately know all of the challenges therin. the primary issue: there was one person responsible for both taking orders/money and plating for have here and packing food for takeaway. ive worked in cafes and bakeries before. that should never be a one person job, especially if its your only till. now its possible they were shortstaff and they would usually have a second person there supporting, but that wouldnt explain the two servers who were delivering food/drink to the table. they could do a dual role - step in and support the person at the till by grabbing the food and immediately delivering them. this would solve the bottleneck issue of people waiting, and would mean people like me who are in a hurry (but not that much of a hurry!) vindication that if they continue to wait in line their food and coffee would come. i unfortunately had to make the calculation that if i stayed in that line any longer i would be late for my appointment. to be clear, i expected a line! i expected a wait! but the style of service itself made it difficult to have any faith. hope you take this on the chin and respect my constructive feedback! the food...