Oregano Bakery, South Hurstville

You can't mention Oregano Bakery without talking about THAT cinnamon scroll. These giant pillows, laced with layers of cinnamon sugar and blanketed with a heavy snowfall of icing sugar, can be spotted in coffee shops and markets all over Sydney. They're even couriered overnight to Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane.

It wasn't always that way. When Sonia and Tony Jabbour first opened Oregano Bakery in 2010, they were all about Lebanese pizza, churning out light and fluffy rounds of dough topped with zaatar (a mix of oregano, thyme and sumac), lamb mince with tomato or slices of sujuc spicy sausage. The first cinnamon scroll was an afterthought that quickly exploded into one of the biggest success stories this side of the Harbour Bridge.


Large cinnamon scrolls $4.90

They're still baking Lebanese pizzas, cheese pides and savoury wraps but step into their gleaming white-tiled cafe in South Hurstville in the early afternoon, and you'll find coffee and scrolls on every table.


Mocha scrolls $5.90

The number of flavours on offer can be bewildering for the first time visitor. Orange and macadamia? Cookies and cream? Nutella and banana? Salted caramel? There are scrolls piled up behind the counter everywhere you look. Unlike the savoury items written up on the board, there's no scroll menu to peruse, meaning you'll have to literally hunt down your favourites by scanning today's offerings and reading the menu place cards. This tends to make the decision-making process even more difficult. So. Many. Choices.


Tahini scrolls $4.90


Salted caramel scrolls $4.90


Red velvet scrolls $5.90


Chocolate and cashew scrolls $4.90


Large cinnamon scroll $4.90

You'd be a fool not to start with the original though. The large cinnamon scroll looks like it's been caught in blizzard, covered in so much icing sugar you'll need to take care not to inhale too deeply and choke.

And this is one of the few places where serving food on a chopping board is entirely warranted. You'll appreciate the carving space. Trust me.


Layers inside the cinnamon scroll

Sure you could go face first into this, but using a knife to cut this beast in half gives you a chance to appreciate all the pretty layers. There are dozens of them. And if you're anything like me, you'll relish peeling apart and eating each layer one by one, slowly savouring the experience.

The scroll is impressively soft and fluffy, and the extraordinary number of layers mean you score a highly favourable cinnamon sugar ratio.


Layers of jam inside the chocolate, raspberry and coconut scroll

The chocolate, raspberry and coconut scroll is a lamington by any other name. We break through the generous dusting of dessicated coconut to find pillowy layers sandwiched with chocolate and raspberry jam. It's like a chocolatey lamington that neatly avoids being cloyingly sweet.


Red velvet scroll $5.90

We can't resist the red velvet scroll either.


Inside the red velvet scroll

The red velvet is a tangy raspberry and chocolate combo that feels closer to a black forest than a classic red velvet (cocoa and cream cheese) but this still ends up being my favourite flavour of the day. The flaked chocolate is what wins me over, a bittersweet counterpart to the zing of berries.



And if you live too far from South Hurstville? They deliver too.






Oregano Bakery
56 Connells Point Road, South Hurstville, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9546 3666

Opening hours:
Tuesday to Saturday 7am-4pm
Sunday 7am-12pm
Closed Mondays


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