The best Siem Reap bakeries pull everything out of their ovens from French croissants to Australian muffins and American bagels, and include French NGO-ran Bayon Bakery and Pastry School’s Bayon Coffee Shop for buttery croissants and financiers, to The Muffin Man, a Cambodian bakery with Australian leanings, for muffins in creative forms and flavours, along with carrot cake, banana bread, burnt Basque cheesecake, Aussie meat pies, and more.
At some stage during your Cambodia travels, no matter how keen you are to eat like the locals, even adventurous eaters find they need a break from local food for breakfast and want little more than to nibble on a croissant. We’ve lived in Cambodia for over a decade, in Siem Reap, the launching pad for day trips to Angkor Archaeological Park, and never tire of tucking into pork and rice or slurping noodle soup at local markets. But we get it.
You might have an upset tummy (a bowl of comforting congee will fix that), need a break from street food, want air-con with your coffee, or find a big bowl of noodle soup too filling and want to save room for a spread of Cambodian dishes for a restaurant dinner. While your Siem Reap hotel can satisfy cravings for cereal, muesli and eggs, we suggest skipping the buffet, grabbing a tuk tuk, and supporting Siem Reap bakeries for your baguettes, croissants, muffins, and like.
Also: locals eat bread for breakfast too. That means you’ll find baguettes and cakes at Siem Reap local markets and a rustic local backstreet bakery on almost every block; more on that below. In our neighbourhood of Wat Bo, the student quarter, cafe-bakeries galore sell bagels (St 27) and Chinese buns (7 Makara St) amongst the bubble tea shops, hot pot places, sushi stands, kebab carts, and ramen joints.
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Best Siem Reap Bakeries for French Pastries, Australian Muffins, American Bagels and More
These are our top picks of the best Siem Reap Bakeries for French pastries, Australian muffins and cakes, American bagels, and more.
Bayon Coffee Shop
For some of the finest French Viennoiseries including flaky croissants, almond croissants and chocolate brioche, head to one of the best Siem Reap bakeries, Bayon Bakery and Pastry School’s Bayon Coffee Shop. Visit during the week and you might be lucky to see the young female baking and pastry students at work in the kitchen from your cafe table. There’s student accommodation on site, but on weekends they cycle home on bikes provided to their villages to visit family.
One of a handful of initiatives of French NGO Ecole du Bayon, the Bakery and Pastry School provides free vocational education to disadvantaged young women from Bayon village and beyond, training the girls to be bakers and pastry-makers. Many graduates go on to work in Siem Reap’s best hotels and finest restaurants, and even start their own bakeries. They learn to make all kinds of breads, cakes and pastries, with an emphasis on French traditions.
Along with quintessentially-French financiers and madeleines, you’ll find an array of cakes, pastries and tarts under the glass counter. The quiche Lorraine is also very good, but I highly recommend the heavenly lemon meringue pie. I always order it and it tastes exactly the same as the first time I tried it when I covered the opening of the School when I was reporting on Siem Reap news for the Phnom Penh Post many years ago. That’s how high the standards are.
If you’d like more than a pastry, the breakfast set menu is just US$4.50 for a Viennoiserie or cake, tea or coffee and fruit salad, while the US$9 brunch set includes tea or coffee, fruit salad, a savoury dish (an omelette, avocado toast or panini, and side salad), and a sweet pastry or cake.
If you’d like to do more for the school, you could make a donation, sponsor a student’s education, or buy something from the cafe’s Corner Shop, such as Kampot pepper, a Bayon apron, chef’s hat or krama (cotton checked scarf), a water bottle, or the Bayon Pastry Cookbook. And if you like to give back when you dine out, see our guide to more Siem Reap hospitality training restaurants. Off Taphul Road, Mondul 2 Village, Siem Reap.
The Muffin Man
If air-con with your coffee and pastry is important, then make a beeline for The Muffin Man’s lovely light-filled cafe next to Homewood Hotel on Street 27 in the eating and sipping quarter that is Wat Bo Village, our own neighbourhood. Australian travellers and expats feel very much at home at The Muffin Man, where Australian-trained Cambodian baker-owner Dorm Dieng specialises in Aussie-style baked goods and breakfast and lunch favourites.
That means you’ll find a menu that wouldn’t be out of place in an Australian cafe with the likes of carrot cake, sticky date pudding, red velvet cake, banana bread, and burnt Basque cheesecake. There are also savoury Australian breakfast favourites, such as avocado toast; traditional Aussie bakery classics like meat pies and sausage rolls; and takeaway favourites, that include bacon and egg rolls, beef burgers, and a ‘Tradies Smoko’ cheese and ham toastie.
The Muffin Man’s specialties are Australian-style muffins in both classic flavours, such as blueberry, and creative forms and flavours, such as coconut and lime, cinnamon roll muffins, and apple crumble muffins. But Dieng also offers French toast, pancakes, brownies, and cookies, as well as Australian-style coffees (yep, you can expect a double espresso and a flat white), teas, juices, and smoothies.
If you’re curious about the Australian connection: having grown up in poverty, Dieng, like many Cambodians went to Thailand to work in construction to save money. After returning to Cambodia, he received sponsorship to complete a tourism and hospitality degree.
It was through his sponsors that Dieng met Barossa Valley-based Australian Kerry Viney, who became a mentor and fairy god-mother of sorts, making dozens of trips to Cambodia to support Dieng’s English studies, teach him to bake, and guide him to develop his business.
Dieng is paying it forward. He recruits his staff from poor villages, supports them as his sponsors did, and with his team does charity work. Dieng now has branches of The Muffin Man Phnom Penh and Angkor Wat, which he recently opened, and his 30-something staff come mostly from disadvantaged Cambodian villages. Next to Homewood Hotel, Street 27, Wat Bo neighbourhood, Siem Reap.
Éric Kayser’s Maison Kayser
If you’re happy to pay as much as you’d pay in France for a pastry or you’re in the heart of Siem Reap’s historic quarter and desperate for a coffee and croissant in the cool of air-conditioning, then you’ll be happy to know that right opposite the main entrance to the French colonial-period Old Market, and a block from Siem Reap River, there’s a petite branch of Maison Kayser, the renowned French baker Éric Kayser.
Eric Kayser is a true artisanal baker, by the age of 19 having travelled all over France apprenticing at the best bakeries and become a Compagnons du Devoir. And affluent Cambodians and expats adore the guy! These days it seems like there’s a branch of Maison Kayser on every corner in the capital, Phnom Penh. I’m exaggerating, of course, but there must be a dozen by now; so many that they have their own Cambodia website.
The Siem Reap branch of Maison Kayser sells the signature monge baguettes (named after Rue Monge in Paris’ 5th Arrondissement, where he opened the first Maison Eric Kayser way back in 1996). With a crunchy crust and flavourful springy texture, this is the baguette to get if you’re staying somewhere like Sala Lodges and you’re going to buy some good cheeses and charcuterie, and a bottle of French wine to sip on your balcony as you watch the sunset.
For breakfast, there are flaky croissants (plain, chocolate, almond), Danish pastries, quiches, and croque monsieur. For something sweeter or fancier, as a treat for yourself or a thank you gift for your guide, there are impressive tarts, entremets, and macarons. I’ve been known to buy the signature Eric Kayser Eclair of perfect choux pastry filled with chocolate cream. They also have super-soft Japanese bread called pain de mie here. Opp. Old Market main entrance, Old Market Quarter.
Backstreet Local Bakeries
Siem Reap has an abundance of bakeries concentrating on Cambodian style baguettes, a remnant from the French protectorate days. There are so many it seems like there’s almost one on every block. At these rustic local backstreet bakeries, bakers work late into the night baking countless trays of the demi-baguettes, called num pang in Khmer, which used to make banhi mi-style filled rolls, slide grilled skewers into, and dip into stews and curries.
Mobile street food vendors and owners of simple local eateries will often cruise by on their motos (small motorbikes) in the wee hours of the morning to buy bags of the baguettes. These kind of bakeries often have a glass counter they’ll wheel out in the morning selling num pang, along with a small selection of pastries and cakes. The one next to our building sells lamingtons, in classic chocolate, as well as pink strawberry, covered in fresh grated coconut.
The num pang from these bakeries is crunchy with a light fluffy interior. Super cheap, they’re a good option for budget travellers and backpackers. Buy some salad ingredients from the market, and charcuterie and cheese from Angkor Market (on Highway 6) or Angkor Mini Mart (7 Makara St) and you can make your own filled baguettes to take to the temples for lunch. A warning: they’re not great the next day when you’ll want to feed them to the ducks or fish on the riverside.
Also Worth Calling Into for Coffee and Cake…
These bakeries and cafes are also worth a sip and bite if you’re in the neighbourhood or wandering by:
Vintage Siem Reap
This lovely low-key cafe has vintage Cambodian posters on the walls and a small selection of ‘cakes of the day’ beneath a glass counter made by young Cambodian baker-barista-owner Ratana. Australian travellers will appreciate the excellent coffee. Expect to find espresso, piccolo, latte, long black, flat white, and even an affogato.
They also do a super-moist carrot cake and outstanding cheesecake. There are also waffles with fresh tropical fruit, tiramisu and chocolate mousse cake. If you’re up for something more heady, try the espresso martini ($3.50!). Opp. Wat Damnak School, Wat Damnak neighbourhood.
Teuy Doung
Locals love these rich creamy layer cakes in local flavours, such as pandan, coconut and lime, topped with loads of fresh tropical fruits. If someone in your family or travel group is celebrating a birthday while you’re in Siem Reap, this is the place to come.
My Cambodian friends wouldn’t think of going anywhere else for a special occasion cake. But they also sell smaller versions of their larger cakes, along with fruit-topped cream tarts, if you’re craving something sweet. Street 22, two blocks from Wat Bo Road, Wat Bo neighbourhood.
Angkor Croissant Bakery
As you can guess, the specialty at this small, super-affordable cafe-bakery on my street is croissants and pan au chocolat (called a ‘chocolatin’), but they also offer crusty baguettes, custard buns, banana bread, pandan cake, strawberry cake, and chocolate brownies for as little as US$1 a piece.
The BLT baguette and omelettes are popular and the bags of cookies are perfect for taking to the temples for snacking. The short drinks menu includes a range of coffees, matcha latte, red lemon tea. Street 27, two blocks from Wat Bo Road, Wat Bo neighbourhood.
Please do let us know in the comments below if you get to any of our picks of the best Siem Reap bakeries and if you have recommendations for other travellers, please feel free to share them.
