Copain is a French boulangerie and patisserie on Mackelvie Street in Ponsonby, making artisan breads and viennoiserie using traditional French recipes, all baked in store and served fresh daily. The name means 'friend' in French — from 'co pain', the person you break or share bread with — and it captures the spirit of French hospitality the bakery is built around: sharing food and taking pleasure in it with the people you care about.
The bakery café counter covers the full range. Artisan breads include sourdoughs, burger buns, Viet sticks, brioche and multigrain loaves, while the cabinet holds rolls, paninis, quiches, sausage rolls and pies made on site. Pastries, croissants and donuts pair with a coffee, and dessert is sorted with sweet treats made fresh on site or at sister patisserie La Petite Fourchette in Wynyard Quarter.
Beyond the counter, Copain runs a wholesale offering of sourdoughs, baguettes, pastries and loaves — with the capacity to handle large quantities — and a sweet and savoury catering menu suited to morning teas, boardroom lunches, afternoon teas and private functions.
Step off Mackelvie Street in Ponsonby and you may smell it before you see it: Copain, a French boulangerie and patisserie where artisan breads and viennoiserie are made using traditional French recipes, baked in store and served fresh daily. Part working bakery, part neighbourhood café, it is the kind of place where a quick coffee stop has a way of becoming a lingering one — a croissant here, a quiche there, and a loaf under the arm for later.
The name says a lot about the place. Copain means 'friend' in French, and the team trace it to 'co pain' — literally, the person you break or share bread with. That idea runs through everything they do. In France, there is always a loaf of bread on the table to share during a meal, and Copain describes that spirit of sharing food and taking pleasure in it with people you care about as the heart of French hospitality — and the heart of the bakery.
The bread range is where the boulangerie side of Copain shows itself. Alongside sourdoughs, the artisan range includes burger buns, Viet sticks, brioche and multigrain loaves, all baked in store and served fresh daily. Baguettes feature too, both on the counter and through the bakery's wholesale arm, so the staples of a French bread basket are well covered.
Viennoiserie is the other daily craft. Signature pastries and croissants are the draw, with donuts joining the line-up at the café counter. Because everything is baked in store and served fresh daily, what is in the cabinet reflects the day's bake — which is a polite way of saying that earlier visits tend to catch the pick of it.
A French bakery in New Zealand soon becomes a lunch stop as well, and Copain's extensive cabinet range is built for it: rolls, paninis, quiches, sausage rolls and pies, all made on site. Pair any of them with a coffee and you have the classic bakery-café formula, done with traditional French technique behind it. The straightforward order here — a cup and a croissant, or a quiche and a coffee — is exactly what the counter was made for.
Dessert is sorted too. Copain keeps a selection of sweet treats made fresh on site, and also draws on its sister patisserie, La Petite Fourchette in Wynyard Quarter, for parts of the sweet collection. That connection gives the dessert side of the cabinet genuine patisserie pedigree — handy to know if you are after a finish for a dinner party or something to take to someone's place.
Copain's ovens do more than feed the Mackelvie Street counter. Through the wholesale offering, its sourdoughs, baguettes, pastries and loaves — along with the sweet collection from La Petite Fourchette — are available to businesses, and the team is able to deal with large quantities.
Catering is the other string to the bow. Copain's sweet and savoury catering menu is pitched at morning teas, boardroom lunches, afternoon teas and private functions, with the team able to create a menu to suit the occasion. For anyone planning an event, it is a way to put proper French bakery fare on the table without doing any of the baking yourself.
The bakery sits at 55 Mackelvie Street in Ponsonby, Auckland. Doors open at 7am Monday to Friday and 8am on Saturday and Sunday, closing at 3pm each day — early visits are rewarded when the day's bake is at its freshest. You can reach the team on 09 378 0264 or at [email protected], and browse the breads, pastries and desserts range before you visit. And if one French bakery is not quite enough, sister café La Petite Fourchette in Wynyard Quarter carries the family name — and the sweet tooth — further afield.