Australia’s baked desserts have come a long way since the lamington (no disrespect to the lamington). We’ve got gourmet croissants from the likes of Lune and Prove Patisserie to the best baked cheesecake you’ll ever taste at Pasticceria Papa’s. But one tasty treat is still not getting its just desserts: Australia’s best vanilla slice.
Every year, the French La Liste ranks the world’s best restaurants, including a category for the world’s best pastry shops, “from neighborhood bakeries to acclaimed establishments".
In 2025, 31 pastry shops and bakeries in NSW and 24 in Victoria made the list. As they should. But as Matt Preston pointed out in an article he wrote for Delicious, “…there were two glaringly obvious omissions: the two Aussie bakeries that hold the title for Australia’s best vanilla slice."
The vanilla slice at Casa Nostra in Alice Springs has a cult following. (Image: Tourism NT/Christopher Nayna)
While Preston concluded this means the humble vanilla slice is no longer an Australian favourite, I say that the more obvious answer is that the pure, messy pleasure of this delicious dessert is quite simply lost on the French, who prefer a more refined and delicate option.
Just last year, Banana Boogie Bakery in Belair, South Australia, won the title of Australia’s Best Vanilla Slice at the Great Australian Vanilla Slice Triumph (the first time a South Australian bakery has received the honour). Victoria’s Sharp’s Bakery, located in the north-western town of Birchip, came second.
Meanwhile, Shepparton’s North End Bakehouse won Best Vanilla Slice for the second year in a row at the Baking Association of Australia’s 2024 Baking Show.
I would say the very fact that there’s an annual competition for Australia’s best vanilla slice is proof that it’s still a beloved Aussie staple. And the French need to pay attention. I would argue that a vanilla slice washed down with strawberry milk is the most elite road trip combination. I don’t care how old you are.
But beyond that, Australia’s bakeries aren’t just resting on tradition with vanilla slices. They’re shaking things up.
Banana Boogie Bakery might have won in the classic vanilla slice category, but they also have a deep-fried option (and as we know, everything is tastier deep-fried). Then they serve it up with ice cream, cream cheese and chocolate ganache. Plus, the bakery’s Chocolate Biscoff vanilla slice also won the ‘innovative vanilla slice’ title.
North End Bakehouse has invented a Salted Caramel Popcorn/Choc Top option. Hungie Fangs Artisan Bakery in Cobram, Victoria, created a more subtle Lemon Wattle variation. In Alice Springs, Casa Nostra has earned a cult following for its vanilla slice that uses Sao biscuits instead of pastry.
All this to say, the vanilla slice is simply perfect as a traditional bakery dessert, but it’s also become an innovative queen of sweet treats. And the French better reflect and not overlook this Aussie icon again come 2026. Give a treat a red hot go!
The French need to learn the art of enjoying a vanilla slice. (Image: Getty/Christine McKim)
Need tips, more detail or itinerary ideas tailored to you? Ask AT.
AI Prompt
Kassia Byrnes is the Native Content Editor for Australian Traveller and International Traveller. She's come a long way since writing in her diary about family trips to Grandma's. After graduating a BA of Communication from University of Technology Sydney, she has been writing about her travels (and more) professionally for over 10 years for titles like AWOL, News.com.au, Pedestrian.TV, Body + Soul and Punkee. She's addicted to travel but has a terrible sense of direction, so you can usually find her getting lost somewhere new around the world. Luckily, she loves to explore and have new adventures – whether that’s exploring the backstreets, bungee jumping off a bridge or hiking for days. You can follow her adventures on Instagram @probably_kassia.
Tuck your napkin firmly in place and get ready to dive into Bendigo’s history.
It’s an internationally recognised fact that Bendigo food experiences prove this region knows how to wine and dine. After all, its shiraz-laden landscape was named Australia’s first UNESCO Creative City and Region of Gastronomy. But what visitors lured in by this shiny label might not know is how deeply its culinary scene sits within the gold-rush town’s colourful past.
Whether you’re eating in a grand colonial bank or nibbling through a gold miner’s garden, grab a big plate. In Bendigo, every meal is served with a huge helping of heritage.
Take a food tour
Join a Foodie Walking Tour to local highlights like Ms Batterhams.
Start in the capable hands of Bendigo Guided Tours. Named as the 2025 Victorian Best New Tourism Business, they run two 12-person options. A Taste of Bendigo – Foodie Walking Tour will see you tasting seasonal dishes and sipping wine, craft beer and cocktails made with regional spirits over two-and-a-half hours, with stops at Ms Batterhams, Wine Bank on View, The Dispensary and Bendigo Brewing.
You can up the ante a notch or two with the Four Hats of Bendigo – a night of fine-dine hopping with the experts across Terrae, Le Foyer, Alium Dining and The Woodhouse.
Book a table
Dine at Terrae.
Alternatively, see Bendigo’s stars under your own steam. There’s Terrae, where produce from the owners’ own farm kitchen garden and orchard is plated up inside what was once a bank, while cocktails are poured in the underground bar below. For something special, book a private table in old bank vault. Rather less wholesome? The bullet hole in the window – a throwback to Victoria’s wild gold rush era.
Another former bank-turned-eatery, Alium Dining, goes full art nouveau inside a 1908 building overlooking the Alexandra Fountain in the heart of Bendigo. Here, Alium’s Asian-meets-European flavours run all the way from duck leg croquettes with mandarin marmalade to raw trevally with coconut and nước chấm, to pork milanese with anchovy and stout mustard.
Beneath an old school hall at Mackenzie Quarters, Ms Batterhams serves southern European-inspired dishes inside a 19th-century basement bar and restaurant. Beyond its sourdough crumpets (smeared with taramasalata, paprika and parsley oil, if you must know) is the origin of the restaurant’s name: Winifred Batterham, the owners’ mother’s former kindergarten teacher. Honour her properly with a ‘Winifred’ cocktail.
Alium Dining offers a unique setting inside a 1908 building.
Carnivores, get ready to bang your sharpest knives on the table. Bendigo’s only dedicated steakhouse, The Woodhouse, specialises in Wagyu sourced from surrounding farms. They’ve got beef every which way – from tartare topped with Giaveri Oscietra caviar and wagyu toast to porterhouse dry-aged and grilled over redgum.
Your next bank stop on the food circuit is Bunja Thai. Housed inside the former Colonial Bank, it’s all Victorian-era Australian grandeur, from the enormous arched ceilings to the detailing overhead. Thai Singha and local craft beer jostle for attention – but both are perfect quenchers when you’re sharing barramundi baked in banana leaf beneath all that old-world opulence.
If your trip through Australia isn’t complete without a country pub stop, make it The Bridgewater Hotel on the Loddon River. Renovated since its 1942 beginnings, but the establishment still retains its Art Deco charm. It’s the kind of place where steak burgers come stacked with bacon, egg, cheese and dripping beetroot relish, and are best handled in the riverside beer garden.
Pour a glass
Find over 180 local wines at Heathcote Wine Hub.
Your plate’s been stacked. Now it’s the glass’s turn – ideally with the famously bold shiraz and cab sav grown here. Early settlers in Bendigo and Heathcote were onto something when they first planted vines in the area’s mineral-rich soil, and their legacy still pours strong across more than 60 cellar doors today. Start big at the Heathcote Wine Hub, where more than 180 wines from nearby vineyards sit beneath the rafters of a restored former wooden church, with 16 available to taste by the glass.
Heathcote Winery might have become one of the area’s first commercial wineries in the seventies, but its story started way before its courtyard tastings. Back in 1854, it operated as a miners’ produce store during the gold-rush years. Other cellar doors aren’t immune to reinvention under the wine wave either. At Munari Wines in Heathcote, charcuterie boards are presented in their newly renovated cellar, originally the stables of the former sheep station.
Discover local events
Time your trip for the Heritage and Hidden Spaces Wine Walk
Time your trip right and watch the parks, gardens and buildings fill with food and drink. Fans of the malt: mark 29 August 2026 for Bendigo On The Hop, when craft breweries take over venues throughout the CBD. Brews make way for history at the Heritage and Hidden Spaces Wine Walk (17 October 2026), where bottles are opened inside some of the city’s most interesting buildings – including rarely opened spaces. In November, the Regional Gin Gala raises spirits in Mackenzie Quarters with a boozy celebration of its homegrown distilleries, including Noble Bootleggers, Envy Distilling and In Good Spirits. Explore wine, food and live music at Heathcote on Show (6 – 8 June 2026).
Take it all in
Tram meets tasty at Bendigo Tram Cafe.
Takeaway means something different in Bendigo. At Australia’s oldest operating Tram Depot, the Tram Cafe sits aboard an out-of-service 1916 N-Class Tram that serves tea and scones. Once you’ve polished off the last crumb, you can even pop into the driver’s cab and try the controls yourself.
Peppergreen Farm continues Bendigo’s long connection to Chinese market gardens, first established here by immigrants in the 1850s. Today, the not-for-profit farm invites visitors to pick up organic produce, alongside jars of honey harvested from its own hives.
Indulge in retail therapy
Elevate your at-home dining experience after a trip to Bendigo Pottery.
If there’s still room in your bag among the clanking jars and bottles, stop by Uniquely Bendigo inside the Old Post Office. Sharing space with the Bendigo Visitor Centre, it’s a one-stop shop for favourites like Bendigo Brittle, Bridgeward Grove and Tea Associates.
If you’d rather leave your fingerprints on your Bendigo souvenir, there’s a place for that too. At Bendigo Pottery, visitors can try their hand at shaping clay while taking part in another tradition of evolving old spaces – creating works of art within Australia’s oldest working pottery.
