At 34 Hall Street, the old Le Paris Go Cafe site is being recast for sourdough, ficelles and beach-foot traffic. Baker Bleu Bondi Beach will open in December as Mike and Mia Russell’s second Sydney shop, following Double Bay in 2022 and carrying the Melbourne bakery’s next move onto Hall Street.
The address matters because Baker Bleu has built its Sydney reputation through a single eastern suburbs counter, the Double Bay shop on Guilfoyle Avenue. Bread for Bondi will still come out of Double Bay. Sandwiches will be made and assembled onsite at Bondi. That split tells you how the new shop will work before the first queue forms, production anchored in the established bakehouse, assembly kept close to the person ordering lunch.
Baker Bleu Bondi Beach: What to Expect at 34 Hall Street
The new Baker Bleu Bondi Beach shop takes over 34 Hall Street, near Gertrude & Alice, the cafe and bookstore that already gives this stretch of Bondi a morning rhythm. “We've taken the old site of Le Paris Go Cafe site on Hall Street near [cafe and bookstore] Gertrude & Alice,” said Mike Russell1. The Baker Bleu Bondi Beach store will use the grab-and-go template of Baker Bleu’s South Yarra outlet in Melbourne, with about 20 outdoor seats for people who decide the bag should not make it all the way home.
That grab-and-go format suits Hall Street. Bondi already runs on fast decisions after the swim, before the bus, between school drop-off and the first meeting. Baker Bleu is not building the Bondi shop around a long sit-down service. It is building around bread, sandwiches, pastries and the short pause outside.
The order to watch is the sandwich. The bread will be baked at Double Bay, but the wagyu salt beef and the ham and gruyere ficelle will be made and assembled onsite at Bondi. That detail separates the shop from a simple satellite shelf. If you are going for lunch, order the ficelle because it is one of the items named for the Bondi assembly bench. If you are going early, make it the dark crust sourdough, a croissant, a Vegemite cheese knot, or the almond and yuzu croissant.
Bondi will also carry soft-serve ice-cream, which Double Bay does not sell. Baker Bleu has trialled soft serve at South Yarra in a seasonal panettone flavour and another version with dehydrated croissant crumb and olive oil. For a beachside store, soft serve reads as site-specific product development rather than a menu transplant. It gives the Bondi shop one thing Double Bay customers cannot already buy across town.
Why Baker Bleu's Sydney Expansion Matters Now
Baker Bleu opened in Double Bay in 2022, after Mike and Mia Russell launched the bakery in Melbourne in 2016. The second Sydney shop arrives after years of customers asking where the next one would land. The answer is Bondi Beach first, then the lower north shore in the first half of 2027 (Thewritedrop).
For Sydney bread people, Baker Bleu Bondi Beach changes the geography of the morning run. Until now, the Sydney point of access has been Double Bay. If you wanted the bakery’s dark crust sourdough, sandwiches and naturally leavened pastries, Guilfoyle Avenue was the stop. Hall Street puts the same bakery into a beach suburb with a different clock: early swims, lunch takeaway, late-afternoon soft serve, visitors who might know Baker Bleu from Melbourne, and locals who do not want to cross the city for a loaf.
The production setup also matters. Baker Bleu is keeping bread production at Double Bay while making sandwiches onsite at Bondi. That preserves the existing bake schedule and gives the Bondi counter a fresh assembly point. In bakery terms, it is a practical choice. Bread wants consistency, ovens, timing and a crew that knows the dough. Sandwiches want proximity to service, clean turnover and a counter that can respond to lunch.
The December opening window carries its own pressure. Russell anticipates a late December opening, which places Baker Bleu Bondi Beach into the busiest coastal stretch of the year. Hall Street in summer is a different street from Hall Street in winter. If the doors open in late December, the first weeks will test the grab-and-go model against beach crowds, visiting families and locals coming back from school-holiday movement.
The Melbourne Pedigree: Mike and Mia Russell's Artisan Approach
Mike and Mia Russell started Baker Bleu in Melbourne in 2016. Another account of the bakery’s beginning places the first shopfront in Elsternwick that year, with queues stretching halfway to Gardenvale. That early queue has become part of the Baker Bleu story because it locates the bakery before the expansion map, before Double Bay, before Bondi, before the lower north shore plan.
Mike Russell came to baking by a less direct route. He started in advertising, then developed his bread practice while working in the pastry section at Rockpool Bar & Grill. He later worked at Sonoma, Iggy’s and Baker D. Chirico in Melbourne. Those names matter because they sit in the lineage of Australian sourdough and bakery counters where crust, fermentation and repetition shape the work.
Baker Bleu has also just opened a new location in Cremorne, Melbourne. That means the Bondi opening is not an isolated Sydney add-on. It comes while the Russells are adding to the Melbourne side as well, with Sydney growing out from Double Bay and Melbourne expanding through another suburb.
The bakery’s range, as described around the Sydney opening, leans broad: dark crust sourdough, croissants, bagels, Vegemite cheese knots, almond and yuzu croissants, ficelles and sandwiches. The important thing is to avoid treating that as a menu scroll. For a first visit to Baker Bleu Bondi Beach, choose one loaf and one made-onsite sandwich. The loaf tells you how Double Bay is baking for Bondi. The sandwich tells you how the Hall Street team handles the counter in real time.
From Double Bay to Bondi, With Neil Perry in the Background
Neil Perry helped bring Baker Bleu to Sydney. When Mike and Mia Russell expanded to Double Bay in 2022, they teamed up with Perry, placing the bakery near his Double Bay restaurant orbit. That partnership ended last September, when a joint statement said Perry had stepped away from the Double Bay bakery to focus on neighbouring restaurant interests. Perry later said he had sold his shares back to the Russells.
The Bondi opening is the first new Sydney Baker Bleu shop in the period after that partnership. The practical through-line is now clear: Double Bay remains the production base for bread bound for Bondi, while the Russells continue the Sydney rollout under their own name.
Double Bay also gives Bondi a tested Sydney reference point. The Guilfoyle Avenue shop drew long queues for dark crust sourdough, sandwiches and naturally leavened pastries. Bondi will not duplicate every detail. Russell has said stores need their own identity and need to work with the local customer base. Soft serve belongs to that thinking. So does the South Yarra-style grab-and-go template.
That local fit will decide the rhythm at 34 Hall Street. A Bondi bakery counter has to move quickly without flattening the product into airport food. It has to send out loaves, knots, croissants and sandwiches in the same rush, with a few outdoor seats catching the overflow. The setup described for Bondi keeps the bakehouse work and the sandwich work distinct. That is the operational detail to watch once the doors open.
What Comes Next for the Lower North Shore and Inner-West
Baker Bleu’s Sydney plan does not stop at Bondi Beach. Mike and Mia Russell have narrowed their search to potential lower north shore sites, with plans to open there in the first half of 2027. Russell has also named the inner-west as a future direction for the bakery.
For Sydney, that gives the expansion a clear east, north and west pattern. Double Bay established the first foothold. Bondi Beach brings the bakery to Hall Street and the coastal morning trade. The lower north shore is next on the stated schedule. The inner-west sits after that as an area the Russells want to reach.
The lower north shore plan is the one with a timeframe attached. The first half of 2027 gives regulars a rough window without giving them a street address. That matters for people who plan around bread, because the first week of a bakery opening is usually when routines start forming. Office workers decide whether the sandwich queue fits lunch. Parents work out whether a loaf can be picked up after school drop-off. Weekend customers learn which items vanish first.
There is also a production question behind the growth, even if Baker Bleu has only laid out the Bondi arrangement. For Bondi, bread will come from Double Bay and sandwiches will be assembled onsite. If the lower north shore opens in 2027, the next question will be whether Baker Bleu repeats that hub-and-counter model or adjusts the bake to fit another part of Sydney. The answer will shape how far the Double Bay oven can carry the city.
How to Visit Baker Bleu Bondi Beach in December
Put 34 Hall Street, Bondi Beach on the December list. The opening is expected late in the month, and the shop will have about 20 outdoor seats. If you are trying to avoid the first crush, go early and keep the order tight: sourdough for the bench at home, then a wagyu salt beef sandwich or ham and gruyere ficelle because Bondi is making those onsite.
If you are coming from the beach, order the soft serve as the Bondi-specific item. Double Bay does not have it. If the South Yarra trials are any guide to direction, Baker Bleu is thinking about soft serve through bakery ingredients, including panettone, croissant crumb and olive oil, rather than treating it as a separate dessert counter.
For regular Double Bay customers, the new shop should read as a second access point rather than a replacement. Double Bay continues to bake the bread. Bondi adds Hall Street service, onsite sandwich assembly, outdoor seats and the soft-serve line. For Melbourne regulars, the South Yarra comparison is the clue: quick movement, tight decisions, and a counter built for takeaway.
The thing to watch after opening is how Baker Bleu Bondi Beach handles the first summer rush. If the loaves hold their Double Bay standard, the sandwiches move cleanly from the Bondi bench, and the soft serve finds its beach crowd, Hall Street becomes the working test for the lower north shore shop planned for 2027.