2025 Pyney’s 🥧 Reviews
Review No 20
St Leonards Milk Bar & Family Bakery
(St Leonards TAS)
Feb 2025
After leaving Hobart, it was time to head north up to Launceston and prepare for Jarrod and Emma’s wedding. On the morning of the wedding I decided to sneak out and do a quick 🥧 review. I jumped in the car and ducked down the road to catch up with Leigh, Anita and Liam from the St Leonards Milk Bar & Family Bakery.
St Leonard’s Milk Bar is located in the outer Launceston suberb of St Leonard’s. The bakery/milk bar has been open for many years, but Leigh and the family have only been here since 2021. Leigh has been in the industry for over 40 years and is now passing his expert knowledge onto his son Liam.
This award winning joint is as old school as you can get, it’s a proper milk bar. Open Monday to Saturday, employing up to 10 staff. The selection on offer here is fabulous and more than just bakery, it caters for everyone.
If your talking scallop 🥧’s you’ve come to the right place. These legends have clean up and taken out the following awards. Best curried scallop 🥧 2023 and 2024 at the prestigious, “Bridport Scallop Fiesta”, 2024 best seafood 🥧 Tasmania baking show and 2024 overall best 🥧 at the Tasmaina baking show.
I did try the scallop pie and it was sensational and had a real kick to it, however, something else on the menu caught my eye. That something was a “Philly Cheese Steak”. This particular flavour I have not seen or reviewed at any bakery in all of my travels, so there was no way I was leaving this place without giving it a go.
🥧 THE REVIEW 🥧
1. Value for Money – $8 is certainly creeping up there, but there are 4 different varieties of cheese in this 🥧 and cheese is so expensive at the moment. The 🥧 itself wasn’t huge but still around industry standard and a “Philly Cheese Steak” could be considered a gourmet 🥧. 8/10
2. Meat/Fill Ratio – This 🥧 was full to the brim with chunky meat and cheese. 10/10
3. Flavour – One word “Epic”. The flavour in this 🥧 was outstanding. Slow cooked chunky beef, capsicum, smoked red leicester cheese, red leicester cheese, tasty cheese, mature cheddar and onion. Every bite got better and better. For the amount of different cheeses it wasn’t overpowering and really complemented the slow cooked meat. The added capsicum just gave that little extra flavour and balance that it needed. I initially thought given the amount of cheese in this 🥧 it would be a little bit salty, but this was far from the case. The flavour in this 🥧 couldn’t be faulted, well done guys loved it. 10/10
4. Pastry – Overall pretty damm good !!! Nice color on top with melted cheese to add a bit of flavour. Shape, stability and shrinkage all more than acceptable and the pastry flavour itself was excellent. The bottom bake and thickness was absolutely perfect, while the top bake was a smidge thick and slightly underbaked. To be honest not much wrong with this pastry. 9/10
5. Serving Temperature – Excellent serving temp. Straight out of the oven into the mouth. 10/10
Overall Rating
🥧🥧 47/50 🥧🥧
This was a fantastic product and one that totally surprised me. As mentioned at $8 the price up there, but the ingredients in this 🥧 are also very expensive. The 🥧 was full, the pastry tasted great and only had issues with the top bake and thickness. The flavour was clearly the favourite. The cheeses blended into the meat perfectly and wasn’t salty at all. I really liked the capsicum it was the perfect neutralization between the meat and cheeses. Well done boys, great concept and a 🥧 I would have again in a heartbeat.
100% add this little gem to your bakery travel plans, it’s not far from the centre of Launceston and it’s well worth the drive.
A huge thanks to Leigh, Anita and Liam for taking the time out of to show me around and share there 🥧 journey with me. This is a genuine family, bakery and it is so awesome to see father and son working together with Leigh sharing his experience and expertise along the way. These little bakeries will not survive without a family succession plan and this bakery is in safe hands with Liam coming through the baking ranks. On such short notice, thanks for having me in, it was much appreciated. Take care guys.
Only one Tassie bakery left to reveal from this mini tour and that’s Oliver’s Bakery & Cafe Ulverstone then 3 cracking reviews from in and around Canberra. After that we are off to Perth then the Central Coast. It’s going to be an action packed couple of months so keep an eye out.
