Goodness gracious gluten-free, Felix Goodwin and Elena Nguyen, the couple behind Kudo’s coeliac-friendly canelés, baked goods and sourdoughs, have opened a bakery-café in a 300-square-metre Brunswick warehouse. Unlike the hole-in-the-wall Kudo, their spacious new spot, Itera, has room for 26 seated punters, and is best enjoyed while dining in.
There’s plenty of newness on offer here, with much of it inspired by Goodwin, Nguyen and their chef Kelvin Ong’s rich and varied food memories. The couple here have married Nguyen’s favourite breakfast, congee, with Goodwin’s favourite dish from his former employer, Donovans, the pot pie, to create a breakfast you won’t find anywhere else in Melbourne. Chef Ong is tapping his Malaysian heritage and travels and serving up a stacked tiger prawn burger injected with a salted cod roe mayonnaise. The cabinet, full with pandan cakes, corn and cheese choux and crème caramel, caters to those after something marginally less hectic but still delicious.
Can we get a ‘hell yeah’ for the people bringing breakfast back? The rösti renaissance is well and truly here, with Itera’s buttermilky, ricotta-filled take on the dish. Avo on toast makes an appearance, too, with the avocado marinated in soy hours ahead of service. And there’s a rarebit, too. Itera’s version brings together corn, Vegemite butter and Gruyère on gluten-free sourdough.
The sourdough is the one you know and love from these gluten-free go-getters, the loaves made from their original starter they cultivated in early 2020. Goodwin, Nguyen and Ong are also experimenting with what they call a sakadane loaf. It’s made with a natural starter created by fermenting cooked rice and koji, and if none of that’s making sense, all you really need to know is that the bread is a little sweeter, a little nuttier, and that it stays a little softer for longer.
It would be true to say that if Goodwin and Nguyen weren’t known for their stellar gluten-free bakes and breads, they would be for their canelés. We’re looking at eight rotating flavours, ranging from classic to infusions previously thought impossible in a canelé, gluten-free or otherwise. Expect vanilla and rum right through to star anise and coffee, and pandan and taro custard on every other day. It’s a comprehensive menu, to say the least, and one that only their sprawling new home allows for.
“We knew we needed more space to keep growing, and the new Brunswick location gives us the production space we’ve needed for a while, room for the team to work, and a space where we can offer a dine-in experience, rather than only take-away,” say Nguyen and Goodwin.
If the abundance of cakes, canelés and bakes doesn’t scream bakery to you, stepping into one of the three towering canelé-shaped sections of the venue sure will. Itera is opens this Saturday. Get there.
Itera opens at 4A Ballarat St, Brunswick on Saturday 12 September; 9am-4pm Wed-Mon, @iterabakery