Just Opened: Buttered, Chippendale

Buttered is a family owned Korean bakery serving up some of Korea's most viral and popular baked items like salt bread and tissue bread. The spacious bakery is situated in Chippendale's heritage "The Brewery". Diners can watch the pastry chefs fold, knead, layer and stuff dough with butter to create their signature pastries. So what are they like and are they worth the hype?

The family behind Buttered are the So's with mother, father, aunt and son Remy So working in the business. The family also own Funda restaurant and Firestone cafe. Remy is the barista and today he is also the man that has to tell customers that Buttered's pastries have sold out. It's 12pm on a Saturday during the soft opening and 400 pastries have already flown out the door. The demand is unanticipated and they can't make more without delving into tomorrow's dough. It's a quality problem to have.

Head pastry chef Philip Choi who also worked at Firestone with the family, helped to develop the signature salt bread. He trained at Le Cordon Bleu, Paris and worked at some of Seoul’s top patisseries. "Salt bread was the treat I craved most when I was homesick," Philip says. "It’s deceptively simple, but when done right, it’s magic." The flavour of the Australian butter used is strong and infuses through the airy factory shop and cafe.

So far, the best seller at Buttered is the Tissue Bread, named for the square tissue box appearance and countless leaves that you can peel off in satisfyingly thin layers. It's light to eat and beautifully buttery. If you are eating in, I recommend asking for the plain tissue bread and the savoury pastries to be heated.

The butter also goes into their salt bread aka "Salty Bois". These are shaped like a crescent or croissant but are more of a dinner roll than a pastry. The centre is a pillow of air with a small cube of butter that melts once baked and finished with salt flakes on top.

The plain salt bread is excellent and perfectly salty but it's the corn and cheese one that leaves us swooning. It is based on the Korean sweetcorn and cheese side dish at Korean BBQ and it is nothing short of glorious with juicy corn kernels and a rich, creamy cheesy sauce. The salty bois start at $5.80 for a plain one and up to $9.80 for a spring onion and bacon salty boi.

They also do an almond salty boi version with a gooey frangipane centre that spills out once you pull it apart.

The sweet tissue breads come in a variety of flavours from chocolate, salted caramel and strawberry vanilla and are $12.80 each. These filled ones are smaller than the enormous stacked plain original. We try three of them: the lemon meringue with an extraordinarily generous amount of lemon curd and a swirl of torched meringue on top.

The matcha has a modest amount of matcha custard and a matcha chocolate frosting and a raspberry on top (I would have loved a bit more filling). And the pistachio is glorious with a very generous amount of pistachio cream filling inside the layered buttery pastry. The flavour is like a buttery cronut but square in shape.

There are also waterfall cakes that are made up of a vanilla sponge with layers of whipped cream and fruit. We try the fig mini waterfall cake and the strawberry one. While both are nice and with a generous amount of fresh fruit, we find the other offerings a bit more special.

Pair the breads or pastries with one of their drinks. There are lots to choose from but I recommend their "Signature Velvet" drinks that are flavoured steamed milk. They come in four flavours: butterscotch (the most popular), Dalgona candy (yes the Squid Game Dalgona), sweetcorn and chestnut. The butterscotch is divine with crumbled caramelised cookie on top but the sweet corn is my favourite. I grew up eating sweetcorn desserts and this doesn't hold back on the signature corn flavour.

The iced matcha is also excellent but on the sweeter side. And from May 8-11th, 2025 when it officially opens, they'll be giving out a free coffee to the first 100 people to buy a salt bread each day!

So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever tried salt bread or tissue bread? Which do you think you'd prefer?

Buttered Bakery & Cafe

5 Central Park Ave, Chippendale NSW 2008

Phone: 0451 977 377

Monday - Friday: 10am - 5pm

Saturday-Sunday: 9am - 5pm