Bath has been a bakery city for roughly 350 years — Sally Lunn buns appeared near the abbey in the late 1600s, and the sugar-crusted Bath bun became a Regency-era obsession. A stay at the Pump Rooms for tea and a bun was once the height of sophistication, and the city clearly hasn't lost the habit. What's new is a wave of openings over the past decade that give travellers a proper reason to plan a day (or a whole weekend) around pastry.
The name locals drop first is Landrace Bakery on Walcot Street. Opened in 2019 by Andrew Lowkes, it bakes sourdough with speciality grains milled at Westcombe Dairy in Bruton, and the cardamom and cinnamon buns sell out early — arrive at opening if you want one warm from the oven. There's a street hatch for Roundhill Roastery flat whites, a ground-floor Caff for lingering over croissants filled with Somerset apricot jam, and from 5pm Tuesday to Saturday the Caff turns out 18-inch pizzas loaded with local ingredients.
A couple of minutes from The Circus, Morso Bakery is hard to miss thanks to its apricot-coloured front. Matt Puchowski and Georgia Barton's bakes are entirely vegan, though they don't shout about it — the savoury Danish with gochujang, maple and confit garlic is the one to order. Green Street, meanwhile, is the lunch move: grass-fed meat from the butcher counter goes into sandwiches like a rotisserie chicken roll with caramelised shallots, and the morning croissants, cruffins and brown butter cookies are worth the detour too.
For coffee purists, Colonna & Small's on Chapel Row has been flying the third-wave flag since 2009 — co-founder Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood is a UK Barista Champion — and it's friendlier than that résumé suggests. Society Café, in the 19th-century Corridor arcade and on Kingsmead Square, pours Origin Coffee beans and stocks its much-requested carrot cake, plus pastries from The Newt in Somerset. Brume Bakery is the one to watch: opening this autumn on Kingsmead Street from a couple with pedigrees at the Beckford Canteen, Soho Farmhouse and The Newt, promising a Parisian bistro-bakery hybrid with stoneground-flour baguettes and stacks of iced buns.
If you're happy to walk, BRaC by the River Avon is worth the extra steps. Chef Sam Wylde's team bakes focaccia every morning and stacks it into towering sandwiches — the Pollo Caesar is the signature. Buy one, walk the ten minutes up to the Royal Crescent and eat it with a view. It's a very Bath combination: serious food, low-effort sightseeing.
Who is this for? Anyone pairing a weekend of Roman baths, Georgian architecture and spa time with genuinely good coffee stops. The city is compact and walkable, the hills are real, and a sugar hit mid-morning is practically a logistical necessity. Come hungry, start at Landrace, and build your route around what's left in the trays.