The Bertha is a visual feast of dark chocolate cake and ganache standing 24 layers high, each $40 slice weighing in at about 900g. It’s the viral signature dish at Get Baked in the UK and it’s in Australia for a three-day pop-up at gelato giant Messina from August 14 (pre-orders from August 10). Bruce Bogtrotter, eat your heart out.
It might be one of the heftier slices of cake in Sydney but it certainly isn’t the only one stacking layers upon layers of aesthetic deliciousness.
Much as The Bertha’s good looks garner social media attention – driving as many as 10,000 orders across Get Baked’s UK outlets each week – Sydney bakeries are drawing queues for their own layered creations.
Local offerings include the crunchy creamy honey cakes, as at the July launch of Christina’s Honeycakes’ Campsie cafe; pastel-green pandan and coconut chiffon cakes at Khanom House in Chippendale; and, of course, the monstrously large, 32-layer chocolate cake served at The Fullerton Hotel Sydney, which comes in at $39 per slice.
Sure, this trend might feel like the sugar-fuelled fever dream of a five-year-old, but perhaps it’s time to indulge your inner child.
Selected from Good Food’s 100 Essential Sydney Cafes and Bakeries of 2026 – plus a couple of extra specialty spots – these are the venues serving Sydney’s best layered cakes.
A.P Bread and Wine, Darlinghurst
A.P Bakery harnessed Sydney’s love of artisan bread and pastries, and turned it into an obsession. Head baker Dougal Muffet uses heritage NSW wheat and house-milled grain to create a formidable offering, from rustic loaves of sourdough to delicate tartes tatin.
The bakery was among the first to serve oversized layer cakes to Sydney, in early 2025. “[It] looks deceptively simple but every layer has to be just right,” says Muffet. “Biggest hurdle is making the impossibly thin layers [of chocolate sponge and chocolate cream] and doing so evenly ... There are no gimmicks or novelty ingredients. The magic is in the balance, the quality of the chocolate, and the patience to let each layer come together properly.”
32 Burton Street, Darlinghurst, apbakery.com.au
Cherry Moon General Store, Annandale
There’s a certain storybook charm to Cherry Moon. It’s the lone cafe on a pretty, tree-lined street, with a hard-working wood oven at its heart. Apollonia, as it’s called, coaxes raw pastry into crisp, flaking layers, gives fig-leaf sourdough its spring, and bakes five layers of dark caramelised sponge for Cherry Moon’s Russian honey cake.
The latter has become a staple of the pastry cabinet, alongside the “signature” cake – three layers of butter cake, cream billowing out the edges, flavours changing with the seasons.
Good to know: Want an entire cake to yourself? Order ahead via their website.
77 Nelson Street, Annandale, cherrymoongeneralstore.com.au
Flour, Caringbah South
Flour is tucked away on a quiet suburban street but you’ll have no problem finding it – just follow the long procession of cars. This sun-drenched cafe-bakery makes excellent breads, sausage rolls and sandwiches but most people come for the pastry cabinet.
It’s a butter-laden dreamscape of lemon meringue doughnuts, bruleed custard tarts and an increasing number of layer cakes. Available only on Mondays, the bakery’s crowning jewel is the classic Victorian sponge: thick clouds of double cream and house-made berry jam sandwiched between feather-light layers.
Good to know: This week the bakery debuts its version of UK baker Edd Kimber’s viral London Cake, with three layers of couverture chocolate cake filled with whipped salted caramel and ganache. Available every weekend in August.
277 Willawong Road, Caringbah South, weareflour.com.au
Happy Alley, Rockdale
Happy Alley is a playful remix of artisanal bakery, fast-food restaurant and Levantine flavours, and there’s nothing else like it in Sydney. Brekkie kicks off with house-made spiced sausage on cheesy egg muffins, revving up to crumbed fish sandwiches and “happy patty” burgers for lunch.
The strength of its in-house bakery grows each year, adding to the signature line-up of cookies in flavours like caramel macadamia and traditional choc chip. In February, it took on Russian honey cake, with more than 10 textural layers of pistachio, golden kataifi (finely shredded pastry) and honey. It also serves a chocolate layer cake named The Bruce, so-named for the character in Roald Dahl novel and ’90s film Matilda.
Good to know: Both cakes are available exclusively for pre-order on the Happy Alley website.
13 Bay Street, Rockdale, happyalley.com.au
Khanom House, Chippendale
Self-taught Thai baker Yeen Veerasenee is a market-stall success story. Buoyed by the popularity of his matcha Basque cheesecakes, Veerasenee opened his first brick-and-mortar in a light-filled corner of Chippendale in 2025.
Returning customers will note some welcome changes since then: more outdoor seating, more drinks, and more pastel green in the pastry cabinet. Veerasenee has a penchant for pandan, using the tropical plant’s natural dye and earthy vanilla flavour to reinterpret his Ukrainian honey cake and create a pandan coconut cream chiffon cake, with layers of pandan whipped cream, pandan custard and warm coconut sauce.
Must try: Finish the pairing with a pandan matcha foam.
15 Meagher Street, Chippendale, instagram.com/khanomhouse.syd
Madame and Yves, Clovelly
Before opening this small shop with wife Jennifer in 2019, classically trained French-born pastry chef Yves Scherrer created the signature desserts at fine-dining restaurants including Est. and Berowra Waters Inn.
Of course, the primary school kids who pile in after class don’t know any of that – they’re just here for scoops of creamy house-made gelato, eclairs glistening with Valrhona chocolate, and flaky croissants (ranked among Sydney’s top 10 in Good Food’s blind taste test).
If they’re lucky, they might score a very impressive-looking yuzu blanc entremets for their birthday, with layers of yuzu mandarin curd, fromage-blanc mousse, raspberry marmalade and vanilla and raspberry sponge, on a base of Linzer sable crunch.
343-345 Clovelly Road, Clovelly, madameandyves.com.au
Beyond Good Food's Essential Cafe and Bakery guide
Get Baked x Messina pop-up
Get Baked’s signature cake The Bertha is available via pre-order from August 10, for pick-up at Messina outlets nationwide August 14-16, but she’s not coming alone. The pop-up also includes ‘The Mertha’, a collaboration cake pairing 12 layers of chocolate sponge with layers of malt cheesecake, Milo ganache and Milo crumble.
various locations, gelatomessina.com
The Fullerton Hotel
You don’t have to wait to try Sydney’s own 32-layer chocolate cake – it’s being served now at The Bar, The Place and in-room dining at The Fullerton Hotel. This one is made with Valrhona 53 per cent chocolate cremeux sandwiched between coffee-infused chocolate sponge, served with Valrhona chocolate sauce and whipped cream. Each slice comes in at $39.
1 Martin Place, Sydney, fullertonhotels.com/fullerton-hotel-sydney
Rovollo Restaurant and Wine Room, Martin Place
Your eyes may be bigger than your stomach, but one slice of this 24-layer dark chocolate cake is probably larger than your entire head. The CBD Italian restaurant serves the torta al cioccolato fondente with warm rosemary berry sauce as a finale to its line up of house made pastas, and it’ll set you back $27 per slice.
Tenancy 7.11, 25 Martin Place, Sydney, rovollo.com.au
Christina’s Honeycakes, Campsie and Newtown
Eastern European honey cake (medovik) is the specialty at this bakery, which began as a one-woman operation in a home kitchen. Try a traditional slice at Newtown, where you can watch the painstaking process of making each cake by hand, or visit the charming new Campsie store, opened mid-July. Flavours include pandan, pistachio and raspberry.
22 Anglo Road, Campsie, and 595 King Street, Newtown, ch-honeycakes.com.au
Enze, Ryde and Barangaroo
The pastry chefs at Enze have mastered the notoriously difficult art of the chiffon cake. Their range, available for same-day pickup, layers delicate, light layers of chiffon with flavours such as lavender coconut, yuzu cream and strawberry mochi.
115 Blaxland Road, Ryde, and 20 Scotch Row, Barangaroo, enze.com.au
Can’t see your favourite cafe? Chances are it’s in another category. Explore the full list of the 100 Essential Cafes and Bakeries of 2026 in the Good Food app. It’s available as a standalone subscription and is included in premium digital Sydney Morning Herald subscriptions. Download it from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.
Good Food reviews are visited anonymously and paid independently. A venue can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the 100 Essential Cafes and Bakeries guide.
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