César Augustyniak of Nam Wan Bakery and Fabio Bardi of Sugar Daddy explain why Hong Kong is the key destination for their latest concepts
César Augustyniak of former Joël Robuchon Hong Kong fame and Fabio Bardi with experience at 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana and Estro once led the pastry programme at Hong Kong’s popular Michelin-starred restaurants making city-famous pastries, petitefour, and desserts.
The entrepreneurial French and Italian pastry chefs, sensing an increasing demand for premium pastries among Hong Kongers and visitors in 2026, embarked on a new path in the industry’s sweet world opening two independent bakeries.
Opening in April, César’s Nam Wan Bakery welcomed customers to join a community in Peng Chau with French pastries and connections at its heart centre. The remote island, with approximately 4,600 residents, was a perfect destination for his bold concept, made possible with Hong Kong’s desire for exciting dining concepts.
The Paris-born chef chose Hong Kong as a base for Nam Wan with a customer base that understands and appreciates fine pastry making, with the location of Peng Chau amplifying the experience in traveling a distance for quality croissants, danishes, breads, and buns.
“The island needed a Western bakery with good quality pastries. I knew from day one that the customer base will be there, Peng Chau has a really strong benevolent feeling,” César shared with Foodie.
The Nam Wan opens for service on weekends, with recipes suggested by customers, with workshops, pastry classes, baking courses, and community activities hosted on weekdays.
To César, his business partner René Yanez, and their team, Nam Wan is a destination for community building, a reason for visitors to travel to Peng Chau for conversations, education, and to create, all united by pastries.
In the four months since opening, Nam Wan has earned a reputation for its rye bread-like sourdough, a rarity in Peng Chau, with their viennoserie yeast-leaved dough, used in croissant and pain au chocolat recipes, drawing similarities to that of Paris’ best, according to his French customers.
Shokupan burger buns, ham and cheese danishes, chouquette puff pastries, baguettes, and fluffy white bread sandwiches join the ever-changing line-up in the space. “As soon as something is not working with our customers,” César said, “we stop it and try something new.”
Nam Wan’s click and order concept, allowing customers from Discovery Bay, Cheung Chau, and Hong Kong Island to order birthday, cream, and layer cakes, and other seasonal creations online and make the trip to Peng Chau to collect it, has also drawn people on the ferry to experience Nam Wan.
“Our customers will come to Nam Wan and Peng Chau to discover something new, because discovery and imagination is really important in Hong Kong culture, it is the identity of Hong Kongers. Your next visit to our bakery will be totally different to your first,” shares César.
César’s newest bakery venture was made possible by a fruitful combination: a premium pastry trend, Peng Chau’s proximity to communities city-wide, and a growing importance of community-building in Hong Kong.
Community-building was essential to Fabio Bardi’s former concept Tozzo in Tai Kwun, an Italian café centered on the maritozzo Roman-style cream bun, drawing crowds to build community over coffee and gelato in the historic art and heritage centre.
Previously, at one Michelin-starred Estro, Fabio designed the bready inception and sweet dessert finale in each tasting menu, leaning into his expertise in Italian pastry making.
For his newly opened patisserie Sugar Daddy in Wan Chai, Fabio expands his vocabulary of pastry making with a menu that can be shared and a space that joins people. Alongside scoopings of gelato and sorbetto and his signature maritozzo, Sugar Daddy’s centerpiece are the piccola pasticceria mini pastries.
“The market is a bit overly saturated with the same dessert product. Hong Kongers want to see something different. I have spent my whole career trying to learn what other people are doing from the U.S., France, Germany, Ireland, and Italy. With Sugar Daddy, I wanted to bring to Hong Kong a different perspective when it comes to desserts,” Fabio shares
Fabio views Hong Kong as the perfect destination for his premium concept with residents and tourists holding an innate curiosity to new products and concepts in the market and a high turnover of customers supporting business, especially on Queen’s Road East at Sugar Daddy’s address.
Building his independent bakery in Hong Kong was an easy decision: he feels the same infectious energy the city showed him on his first visit in 2012. “I like how energetic the city feels,” he shared.
Modern Italian pastries are brought to the forefront at the patisserie, with technique, not ingredients, the focus here. “With our [piccola pasticceria], I want to bring guilt-free pastries for customers to enjoy this Sunday lunchtime tradition I experienced in the 1980s and 90s in Italy.”
This central product, as explained by Fabio, suits the Hong Kong pastry and dessert market with its similarity to dim sum. “A few pieces on a plate, one or two bites per person, and you get to try different things rather than the whole plate of pasta or a whole steak.”
The pastry menu is designed with low-sugar and natural ingredients sourced locally and regionally to build their selection, with vegan, sugar-free, and dairy-free options affording all customers with accessible snacks at Sugar Daddy. A selection of high-protein salads and sandwiches support the weekday office crowd in Wan Chai and Admiralty with a premium dining option.
“I believe we need to approach the market with something the market wants to enjoy eating. Food is about enjoyment, it’s about sharing, and people should have the right to eat what they please!”
Sugar Daddy’s dim sum-like pastries, using local ingredients but retaining their Italian origins, are a true fit for Hong Kong’s rapidly evolving dessert space.
“Hong Kong has an insatiable appetite for quality pastries. Our job is to help foreign food businesses of all kinds to thrive here,” Sindy Wong, Head of Consumer and Hospitality of InvestHK, says.
With Peng Chau’s remoteness, that lends to a novel sweet experience to be enjoyed, and Wan Chai’s accessibility and maturation of a dining hub, César’s Nam Wan Bakery and Fabio’s Sugar Daddy find a suitable fit in Hong Kong, where pastries continue to evolve with ever-increasing customer demand.
Nam Wan Bakery is open Friday, Saturday, and Saturday from 7:30AM to 5PM, accessible by a 23-minute ferry from Central Pier 6. Sugar Daddy is open in Wan Chai Tuesday to Friday 8AM to 6:30PM and Saturday to Sunday 9AM to 7:30PM.
This feature was brought to Foodie in partnership with InvestHK.
