8 of the Best Bakeries In Newcastle

Baked goods are one of the main beneficiaries of the ongoing food revolution: artisan bakers, farmers markets, pop-up cake stalls and the rest have all given pasties, scones, buns and loaves a new lease of life, with both a return to traditional, more tasty and sustainable methods and a move to some more wild and wonderful creations. Newcastle isn’t short of excellent bakeries, many inevitably in Grainger Market. Here are a few you should get to know.

PureKnead Bakery – Dean Street

PureKnead was born almost a decade ago in Paula Watson’s kitchen via a stall on Tynemouth Market before moving into a Whitley Bay shop and now there's a branch in the city centre that’s been open just over a year. PureKnead prides itself on its traditional approach to breadmaking – the loaves are additive free and baked the old way – and this attention to detail and quality extends to its cakes and pastries, as well as the coffee and sandwiches available for you to grab for lunch. They offer bespoke cakes of course, and also some excellent ceramics, jewellery and gifts from Nkuku.
 

The French Oven – Grainger Market

The French Oven is a long-standing Grainger Market institution - a genuine community bakery that prides itself on an inclusive and diverse work experience scheme alongside its well-deserved reputation for outstanding artisanal baking. Open from 8am till 2pm Monday to Saturday, it serves a dozen or more breads (from traditional sourdough to an untraditional beetroot sourdough) plus scones, pies, puddings, pasties, cakes and sandwiches and paninis. They also cater for events and parties.
 

Pet Lamb Patisserie – Grainger Market

Very near The French Oven in the market you’ll find Pet Lamb Patisserie, purveyor of a mind-boggling and mouthwatering selection of sweet treats that’s existed as a shop for around a decade. Open from Thursday to Saturday from 9.30am till 4pm, their products are also available online so you never need to go without such essentials as Lotus Biscoff Blondies, Wagon Wheel Brownies and Cookie Dough Pies. And if their bespoke cakes taste as good as they look, then wow!
 

Bread Point – Low Friar Street

Just on the south edge of Chinatown, Bread Point is a lovely little café and takeaway that offers a mixture of Asian and European baked goods (so pork buns and custard tarts!) in a great atmosphere. There are Chinese and Vietnamese dishes available too (try the pho!) as well as excellent drinks including bubble tea.
 

Jasmine Bakery House – Fenkle Street

Another Chinese bakery on the edge of Chinatown is Jasmine Bakery House. Again, much like Bread Point, it offers plenty of Chinese food like noodles, stir fries and soups alongside its Chinese breads, buns and cakes.
 

Pink Lane Bakery – Pink Lane

Recently expanding to a third branch in Jesmond, the original city centre bakery has been an essential destination for artisan baked goods for a few years now and the frequent queues out the door are a testament to its ongoing popularity. Because of its compact size, this Pink Lane branch doesn’t cover the full range of sandwiches and cakes you might find in Gosforth or Jesmond, but there’s always an amazing range of sourdoughs, pies and pastries, sausage rolls, buns and celebration cakes. You can click and collect via the website, and they’re happy to make custom wedding and birthday cakes to order.
 

Mason + Rye – Northumberland Street

Mason + Rye is Fenwick’s inhouse artisan bakers, found in their much-loved food hall. As you’d expect from a Fenwick venture, they offer some outstanding patisserie, cookies, sandwiches and cakes – all made in-house daily – as well as an excellent selection of fresh juices and coffee. It's a wonderful place to stop for lunch or to grab a cake to takeaway and they offer a bespoke cake service too, of course.

Greggs – Various Branches

Last but not least, of course, there’s Greggs. One of Newcastle’s greatest corporate success stories (it started in Gosforth just before the war), there are hundreds of branches across the UK, and a remarkable twelve stores in NE1 alone. While Greggs is always developing and diversifying (including that famous tie-in with Primark!), its core mission remains unchanged: to provide freshly baked savouries, bakes, sandwiches and sweet treats at a bargain price. So whether you’re grabbing a bacon roll from the Central Station branch on the way to work or tucking into a corned beef pasty between clubs at 2am at the Grainger Street shop, Greggs is always there.