Under Bakery has evolved from a market stall to a hugely popular destination bakery in Canberra in just a handful of years. Baking Business caught up with owner and founder Lachlan Cutting to hear about their journey so far, and the role cardamom buns played in the process.

Not many people can say a cardamom bun helped shape the future of their career, but for Lachlan Cutting that’s not far off the mark.

The former chef was working in Copenhagen, Denmark, and would spend his days off travelling across the city in search of the perfect cardamom bun, being exposed to some of the best bakeries the city had to offer along the way including JUNO the Bakery, which in its time has been voted Copenhagen’s best bakery

During his four-month stint in Denmark, Lachlan said his interest in cardamom buns soon evolved into a fascination with the entire baking industry.

By 2019 the Canberra native had landed back Down Under, and unsure what he wanted to do professionally considered a return to the kitchen.

“I was in Melbourne, actually, and I went to the Alphington Farmers Market and saw Miek Paulus who now has Ket Baker,” Lachlan said.

“This was back in 2019 so she was just at the markets, selling her pastries and things and they were amazing. I went there a few times and was like ‘this is great, and that looks like heaps of fun’.”

Lachlan with an Under Bakery staff member

Returning home

When he returned to Canberra Lachlan threw himself into the unknown, deciding initially to bake at home and sell his products at the markets.

With no real experience baking, Lachlan said he cast his mind around for what he could make that would line up with his cheffing knowledge before settling on the cardamom buns he’d fallen in love with.

“I just went all in on those. I researched and researched and tested and tested and just kept going until I was sure I had something I could sell,” he said.

“That’s pretty much how Under Bakery got started.”

Located in Mawson, Under Bakery is now considered something of a Canberra industry icon and most recently had their cardamom buns named on the 2026 delicious.100 list. However, Lachlan said since those first days at the markets he has always prioritised working on his own terms. This includes placing a firm number on the amount of products that are made at Under Bakery rather than scaling up at an unsustainable level.

“[To this day] we just bake a certain amount and bake it really well, and that’s what you’re going to sell. Luckily it’s kind of worked out for us,” he said.

“At the markets people had the product and they loved it, so each week it was just like, ‘I’m going to do this amount and then that’s all I have’ because I knew it was going to sell out. It was only a small amount.

“It’s hard because you do have to keep up with demand, but then you can’t do everything and you can’t push yourself too much or else it will end up being a pretty average product.”

Under Bakery at Mawson

Setting up shop

Within one year of selling products at the markets, Lachlan and Under Bakery were ready to take the next step.

By 2020, a bricks-and-mortar store was found that ticked all the necessary boxes: a food safe environment, enough power, a grease trap and exhaust fan. Other than that, Lachlan said, he didn’t focus too much about what was in the space but instead turned his attention once again to producing an outstanding range of baked goods.

“It just remained myself for a while – my brother helped out for a while – so we just kept costs low and just focused on the product for a couple of years,” Lachlan said.

“We started off with just the cardamom buns and sourdough bread options. We played around with a couple of little savoury things with the bread, so there was maybe three or four doughs in the whole range.

“We worked off those three or four base doughs and made as many products as we could out of those; we had maybe six to eight items in total in the beginning. Then, as the bakery grew, we’d add on more. We didn’t start vienoisserie until we hired a pastry chef, and then we set up that section. That just opened up a whole new world as well.”

In 2025 Under Bakery opened the doors to a second location, this time at the Dairy Road precinct in Fyshwick just south of the Canberra CBD.

The decision was made partly out necessity, Lachlan said, as Under Bakery had outgrown its Mawson site.

“The space in Mawson was too small and not efficient. The Fyshwick location is huge and is designed way better,” Lachlan said.

“We’ve taken everything we learned from the first place and have set up Fyshwick so it flows. Now people can really spread their wings and we have a little bit more room to be creative as well, because we’re so busy here that before we had no room to be creative or to develop new stuff.”

Lachlan out the front of Under Bakery

Although there will be a similar base range of products on offer across both locations, the Under Bakery team will focus on creating site-specific specials, and while Mawson will remain a takeaway-style bakery the Fyshwick bakery is home to a café-style sit-down environment.

It’s these little considerations that Lachlan said help to make a difference to their customers.

A former Mawson local himself, Lachlan said they had reached the point at that location where every customer is now a regular.

“Mawson is right near where I went to school, so it’s funny that out of everywhere we ended up it was back in a familiar area where we knew the locals already,” he said.

“We would get teachers and people in the area that we knew coming through and now, seven years on, we have a really solid community here and every customer is a regular, which is great.”

After having achieved so much with Under Bakery in such a short amount of time, it would be easy to assume that Lachlan has solid plans in place for the coming years, however nothing could be further from the truth.

Instead, he said, they’d keep focusing on simply going with the flow at Under Bakery.

“We’ve always taken it week by week and gone with the flow. The end goal is just the best environment possible to work in, and the best products we can possible make using the best ingredients. Those three things are the main focus,” he said.

“This second location is more than we need at the moment, and it’s built for growth. Hopefully we’re there for a while – I can’t see us wanting or needing to push further. We’ve created our ideal home and we’ll just live there for as long as we can.”