Note: Dench has been refurbished and expanded since this was written and has a more extensive menu these days.

Dench bakers is quintessentially North Fitzroy, a mix of rustic and modern, refined punk, glamorous grunge, which is to say grown ups pretending to be young, and the young pretending to be grown up. It combines organic bread and baked goods with coffee, it’s the home-style that no one really has at home.

Display cases are filled with escargot and chocolate croissants, banana cake, bee-stings, and brownies. They serve breakfasts and lunch, from granola to prepared paninis and sandwiches of in-vogue ingredients like bresala and provolone with tomato and salad; roast lamb with cranberry, chilli and plum relish or the simpler mayo lathered tuna and salad. Eggs come poached or scrambled with extras like bacon, avocado or mushrooms. There’s French toast, plain toast, filled or plain croissants savoury or sweet muffins. Specials might be a duck and shiitake risotto or a goats cheese and prosciutto omelette.

Breads sit on exposed frame shelves, dark and burnished, dusted in loose flour of creamy whites. There’s brioche, spelt, olive and walnut, foccacia and ciabatta, raisin and stone, most around $5 to $6 dollars.

Minimal colours and décor give the feel of being inside a panorama box that could be hosed out after a big night. The floor is marble composite, walls are exposed white-painted brick, arty photos hang well framed, a plump flower arrangement looks out the window. The ceiling is half painted boards and a plaster box hiding electrical cabling that can’t get inside the walls. An inexplicable large alfoil dolphin hangs over the entrance. Down lights are suspended from wire tightropes. Noise echoes: staff chatter, blues, jazz or whining folk, clunks from the open kitchen at the back. Distressed wood tables and panelling combines with grey metal, cool and warm.
There’s style and effort being taken. Glasses of water come unbidden, table service is attentive and easy going, not overly fast or slow. The staff are friendly and colourful in personality not dress, all wear black t-shirts.

Customers sit at compact tables along the wall or at the window bench looking across to the Piedmonte’s loading bay and scungy terraces where herbs and bright flowers thrive in pots. It’s not a group venue. About twelve can sit inside and about the same take up positions under red Genovese coffee umbrellas outside close to the Scotchmer traffic belching in sporadic flows. Solo readers and note takers contemplate over coffee. Groups of twos and threes, with prams or dogs chat as likely dressed in overalls as Sass & Bide jeans.

And if you don’t want your home-style out, there’s a selection of home-style meals and dips to take home.

DENCH Baker 109 Scotchmer Street, Fitzroy North VIC 3068 +61 3 9486 3554