2025 Pyney’s 🥧 Reviews
Review No 14
Cottage Kitchen Bakehouse
(Smithton TAS)
Feb 2025
I finally arrived up at Stanley and I can confidently say this is one of my favourite places to visit in Tasmania. This was my second time to this area and there is so much to see and explore. This place has the famous NUT, boutique shops, Hershey’s seafood but sadly no bakery. The good news is there is a bakery up the road at the nearby town of Smithton.
Smithton is only 20 odd kilometers from Stanley and it’s there you will find the Cottage Kitchen Bakehouse and current owners Alex and Jenna. Alex and Jenna took over 2 years ago with absolutely zero baking experience what so ever. Alex was a local truck driver for many years and Jenna are qualified beautician and stay at home mum. When the opportunity came up to buy this bakery, they jumped headfirst in and haven’t looked back. The transformation of this place over the last two years has been incredible. The bakery is open 7 days a week, employees 17 staff including 5 bakers. They also wholesale there awesome products around the Smithton area, including the local Woolworths.
The moment you walk in the bakery, you greeted to a sensational cabinet display. The cabinets are completely full with every product imaginable. Trust me your eyes will wander all over the place, as there is so much variety. The engine room out the back is huge, but one thing that stood out was how clean and tidy the place was. Like most visits after meeting the staff and chewing the fat for a while, it was time to get started.
Once again, another bakery with a great variety of 🥧’s on its menu. This is an old-school bakery, and as you can imagine has all the old-school favorites. This week I wanted to try something a little different and one I haven’t particular flavor I had for a very long time. So in saying that I went for the “chunky steak and mushroom” From what I’ve been told this is a very popular pie and I couldn’t wait to get started.
🥧 THE REVIEW 🥧
1. Value for Money – $6.50 is excellent value in my opinion. The 🥧 was a decent size in both depth and diameter and filled with chunky meat. To find a 🥧 in the six dollar range is always always value. 9.5/10
2. Meat/Fill Ratio – No problems here !!! This things was completely full. 10/10
3. Flavour – Seriously I absolutely loved the flavor in this bad boy. I don’t know if it was the chunky meat or the rich gravy sauce, but it didn’t matter, the overall flavor in this 🥧 was incredible. The meat pieces were plentiful and beautifully cooked. There was aslo a perfect mix of onions and mushrooms which added to the flavour. The rich gravy sauce was fantastic and you could easily taste the Worcestershire sauce in there, which added to the overall experience. Great job team, phenomenal flavor in this 🥧 !!! 10/10
4. Pastry – Overall pretty decent pastry. Top bake thickness was spot on as was the bake. The stability, color and shape were also on point and the pastry flavour was terrific. The only thing that let this score down was the side and bottom bakes, both were a little bit under baked and pastry a fraction too thick. Apart from that everything else was really good. 8/10
5. Serving Temperature – No issues with the temp. 10/10
Overall Rating
🥧🥧 47.5/50 🥧🥧
In my opinion, this was close to the perfect 🥧. The price point was spot on, the flavour was devine and the serving temperature was perfect. It was only a few minor points on the pastry that brought down the overall score. This is a massive call, but I’m gonna say this is the best steak and mushroom 🥧 I’ve tasted on my journeys. I’m not sure what made it so brilliant, but rich dark gravy sauce I will remember for a very long time. Outstanding work guys job well done absolutely loved it.
100% add this little hidden gem to your list of bakeries while visiting Tasmania. This Bakery has everything that you need and more and if you’re planning a trip down the West Coast pop in stock up, you won’t be disappointed.
A massive thanks to Alex, Jenna and the entire team for having me in and showing me around their fabulous bakery. I absolutely love this visit and loved chatting to Alex and Jenna and hearing their passion for this industry. The work they have done to this place in the last two years is incredible and they haven’t finished yet. I take my hats off to these two with no baking experience whatsoever, they are smashing it, and I wish them all the very best. Absolute legends.
As previously mentioned, I absolutely loved Stanley and the surrounding area. Had a couple of epic nights at the Stanley Hotel Bistro and had dinner at the famous Hursey Seafoods
restaurant. The hotel was a great spot to stay and the seafood restaurant was amazing.
