Bakery on O’Connell

This place has always had the goods (baked goods!) but now they also have the look! New bakery is open, friendly and super welcoming with ample seating — something which is needed given this place is pumping at any hour of the day!
A 24hour haven of baked treats guaranteed to be of fresh quality irrespective of the time you drop in.
For the savoury lover out there you can’t go wrong with the spinach and tomato pocket or sausage rolls! For the sweet tooth lover amongst us (amen!) you can’t go past the original o’connell street bakery donut or Nutella heart. This place is hands down one of the best bakeries, super convenient and very low priced given the quality of the goods — this makes it a dangerous place though because you end up buying a few extra treats along the way!

O’Connell Bakery is an Adelaide Institution! A bit of background– a long time ago it used to be a regular bakery but demand grew to a point where they couldn’t cope and changed to 24 hours. This year, it also got to the point where they had to move down the street to a new location. So yeah, this place is that good!
The new store is so much nicer, looking cleaner and much more
was good to see that they had the same huge selection of pastry available as before. I’ve been going every now and then for the past year and the consistency of their products is amazing. They have so many pastries but quality is not sacrificed.
My default go to is the custard tart, and I can say with confidence that this is the best custard tart I’ve ever eaten. The custard is on another level, it’s like crème patisserie on steroids. Thicker, smoother and richer than your standard crème pat, and they really tone down the vanilla flavour so you taste the egg more. I think they add heaps more than usual the amount of eggyolks to get that consistency. You can tell the’re made fresh because the pastry is still crisp when you bite into it. Now I can’t go back to the watery balfours custard tarts anymore.
So about 85% I’ll get the custard tart, but I’ve also tried a few other things. Tried the steak and pepper pie one time but I’m not the biggest meat pie fan so not much to comment on that. The nutella cronut was nice when the cronut craze was happening, don’t know if they still have it. There’s still so much to try but I don’t anything can beat the custard tart. The donuts with whipped creams are solid.
The price is what keeps me coming back. The custard tart is $ 3.50 per slice and hasn’t increased in over a year. If I don’t feel like blowing $ 30 at a cool, hip dessert café then I’ll come here. I get that deconstructed plating and negative space and those trends are popular (not to mention molecular gastronomy) but not every place can pull it off. There’s no faffing around on ceramic slates, a dozen tiny elements on said slate (although sometimes that can work), or ‘artisan’ ‘housemade’ ‘foams’ ‘gelees’ and the list goes on. You order, it comes on a plate and that’s that, go and eat it! Absolutely no pretensions.
Reasons why it gets a 5: very unpretentious, great selection of pastries, great quality all round, open 24/​7, very reasonable prices… and BEST custard tarts around!

Bakeries are perfect for every meal/​snack of the day and therefore a 24 hour bakery?! PERFECTION. Not to mention, the range in this one is possibly the largest I’ve ever seen. I love the «put-​togetherness» of the place. Not too fancy, not too casual and in a perfect location. Thank you from the bottom of my stomach for being open when everyone else is closed :)