Giuseppe Caputo likes to tell a story about how he and Matteo Cerin became business partners.

“I’d been looking for a commercial space since March [last year],” Caputo says. “When we met through a friend in August, we realised we were chasing the same shop.”

In another life, Caputo and Cerin may have ended up competitors. Instead, in late May they opened Cerin Pasticceria together in the Woolloongabba premises previously occupied by The Baker’s Arms. A good move, apparently, because there have been queues out the door ever since.

“I wasn’t too sure about this location,” Caputo says. “There are a lot of empty shops around here. And some of the local business people were complaining about this strip being quiet.

“But I was like, ‘The kitchen is very big. A bakery setup like this might be half a million dollars [which we didn’t have the budget for]. Let’s get it. If it’s not going to be super busy at the beginning, we can build it into something and there will be the option to do catering.’ ”

“We’re eventually going to do that,” Cerin adds. “But right now, we just need to keep up with production for people who have found us. There has been really good word of mouth.”

Cerin Pasticceria sets itself apart from the stacks of other bakeries that have sprouted since the pandemic by focusing on Italian pastries and sandwiches.

Cerin learnt his trade at a bakery in Vincenza, 70 kilometres from Venice in the north-east of Italy. In Australia, he has baked at Noisette in Melbourne, and Le Bon Choix in Brisbane.

Caputo has a background in managing restaurants such as Italian Street Kitchen in West End and Spaghetti House in South Brisbane, and did a two-year stint managing Le Bon Choix on Queen Street in the CBD.

“It was very traditional,” Cerin says of the bakery in Vincenza. “But in the north, you get a lot of influence from France and other parts of Europe, so it taught me a diverse style of baking. That’s where I developed a lot of my ideas. But we’re mostly Italian, I would say.

“In Italy we use a lot of custards, and the typical cake that we do here – the mignon – that’s very particular to Italy. You go into a pasticceria in Italy and you might find 50 different varieties.”

“We call it pasticcini,” Caputo adds. “In Italy we sell them by the kilo. On a Sunday, you might have lunch with your family and then go to the pasticceria and buy a kilo of pasticcini. Here, we sell them by the unit.”

Arrive at Cerin in the morning and the cabinets are stacked full of pasticcini. You might find passionfruit or pistachio crostatina, salted caramel or chocolate bigne (cream puffs), mini rhum baba, cannoli, and mini tarts topped with custard and seasonal fruit.

Larger items include vanilla and Nutella bombalone; plain, pistachio or vanilla cornetti; maritozzo (brioche buns piped full of whipped cream); and Danishes topped with seasonal fruit, or smoked pancetta, carbonara cream and shaved parmesan.

Later in the day, Caputo and Cerin serve four savoury focaccia – margherita with fresh bocconcini; porchetta with potato and rosemary; mortadella with stracciatella; and roasted veggies with provola – which all come with the requisite, satisfying crunch when toasted.

In the kitchen, baker Cerin is using Cormon butter imported from Belgium, and mostly Molino flour from Italy, which he favours for its relative consistency.

For drinks, Cerin Pasticceria is serving Veneziano espresso and San Pellegrino soft drinks.

The shop itself is a lovely, light-filled switch-up from the relatively grungy vibes of The Baker’s Arms. Caputo and Cerin consulted Melbourne-based designer Jennifer Allen to deck the space out in shades of baby blue and grey, with timber and brass accents, and a polished concrete floor. Taking pride of place is an enormous marble counter that displays the baked goods. Beyond, through a window, you can spy Cerin and his pastry chefs working in the temperature-controlled room preparing the cornetti.

Seating is currently limited to a bench at the bifold windows that look over the precinct, with Caputo and Cerin frustrated that applications for footpath dining have thus far been rejected by Brisbane City Council.

“We’ve applied twice, and luckily, we’ve been refunded twice … [but] they are working on it,” Caputo says.

“We didn’t put much seating inside because we anticipated we’d have 20 seats on the footpath,” Cerin says. “In Brisbane, it’s always warm, so it’s great to sit outside. It will affect us as a business – there are people who won’t come because they can’t sit here – so we’re very lucky that things have started so well.”

Open Tue-Sun, 6.30am-3pm

29 Logan Road, Woolloongabba

instagram.com/cerin_pasticceria