There are few better places to eat a toastie in Australia than at a table at Porch & Parlour, with the Pacific Ocean glittering in the distance and a flat white in hand. The herby garlic mushroom number here (sourdough pressed with Swiss cheese, mozzarella, sauteed greens and enough ooze to require the deployment of a napkin) is the kind of thing you’ll find yourself thinking about during the rest of the working week. This is a textbook toastie executed with care, at a cafe that has been part of the Bondi landscape since 2012, because classics endure for a reason. 17-18/110 Ramsgate Ave, North Bondi; @porchandparlour

There’s exactly one toastie on the menu at Penny’s, which is usually either a sign of laziness or of supreme confidence. With Penny Lawson, it’s empirically the latter. A trained fromagère who has worked in the world’s great cheese rooms, Lawson makes her toasties with an ever-rotating blend of up to eight hand-grated cheeses – cheddar for sharpness, Raclette for melt, Gruyere for depth – packed inside sourdough from Pyrmont’s Pioik Bakery, and then, brilliantly, pressed into a crust of cheese on the outside too. The result is a molten, crackling masterpiece. Only 50 are made on Saturdays, so set your alarm accordingly. Unit 6/127-139 Macleay St, Potts Point; pennyscheeseshop.com.au

Most toasties use bread. Nineteen43 uses ka’ak – traditional Lebanese sesame bagels, baked fresh in-house every day – and it changes everything. The bread is chewy and fragrant, with an outside crunch that ordinary sourdough just can’t replicate. Fill it with sujuk fermented spiced sausage, cream cheese, feta and fried eggs for a breakfast that covers every base and food group, or go for the smoked wagyu with harissa mayo and pickles for a flavour punch that’ll leave you humming all day. This little cafe on the bayside strip has been celebrating Lebanese street food since 2018, staying open until 10:30pm nightly. It is, in every sense, a neighbourhood treasure. 341 Bay St, Brighton-Le-Sands; @nineteen43cafe

If you’ve never considered Parramatta a destination for serious food, Lucien Baked Goods would like a word. The riverside bakery from the Circa Espresso team is all clean lines, natural light and impeccable pastry, and the toasties hit the same heights. Warmingly spiced sujuk (fermented sausage) and cheese are pressed into house-baked sourdough in an inspired combination of Middle Eastern warmth and pure dairy joy, while the classic cheese-covered croque monsieur is the kind of thing that makes the train ride from the city feel worthwhile. Sydney’s west has been quietly producing some of the best food in the city, and this place proves it. 111 Phillip St, Parramatta; lucienbakedgoods.com.au

Down on the Cronulla mall, a short, sandy stumble from the beach, Loaf has been making some of the Shire’s most satisfying toasties since 2015. And they’re still hitting. The bacon, onion ring and barbecue sauce-jammed ‘Bacon Me Crazy’ number is popular, but the ‘Shroom & Bloom’ mushroom jaffle is the sleeper hit: truffle-laced mushies, spinach and a double-cheese filling pressed into thick-cut bread. How do they make such simple ingredients taste so good? Everything here is made in-house or sourced locally: the coffee comes from White Horse, the bread comes from Cronulla Bakehouse, and the whole operation hums with the breezy, seaside confidence of a place that has never needed to be trendy to be brilliant. 89 Cronulla St, Cronulla; loafsandwiches.com.au

Named after the anonymous street-food stalls that sit beneath the overpasses of Indian cities, Flyover Fritterie is one of Redfern’s most exciting restaurants, and its jaffles might be the most inventive toasties on this list. The dosa potato jaffle is the one to get: crispy bread packed with spiced potato and an incredible, texture-filled peanut chutney. Arriving with a refreshing radicchio salad, it tastes unlike any toastie you’ve ever had before – it’s bold, complex and genuinely thrilling to eat. Pair it with one of owner Gunjan Aylawadi’s masala chai blends, and you’ll wonder why all jaffles don’t taste like this. 88 Regent St, Redfern; flyoverfritterie.com.au

Tucked beneath a staircase off George Street like a delicious secret, this Indonesian coffee specialist has become one of Sydney’s great lunch pilgrimages. The reason? A mie goreng toastie that shouldn’t work but absolutely, spectacularly does. Instant Indonesian noodles – the ones you ate at university at midnight – get folded into toasted bread with a runny fried egg, mozzarella, Gruyere and a proprietary ‘smuggler’s aioli’; the recipe of which the owners will presumably take to their graves. The result is salty, spicy, gooey and completely addictive. With three locations now across the city and still expanding, this is no longer Sydney’s best-kept secret, but then again, it never really was. 200 George St, Sydney; dutchsmuggler.com.au

Tucked down a backstreet off the Pacific Highway, Cavalier 1.0 is the kind of tiny, copper-trimmed espresso bar that makes you feel a bit smug just for knowing it exists. The signature four-cheese toastie layers fior di latte, bechamel, tomato and a house cheese blend into Sonoma linseed sourdough, toasted until crackling and molten, with the option to add your choice of meat (hello, mortadella). But it’s the bolognese version, made to a rich home-style recipe, that regulars guard like a secret. The coffee, drawn from a rotating cast of Australia’s finest independent roasters, is exceptional, too. A neighbourhood gem that punches well above its postcode. Shop 1/34 Oxley St, St Leonards; cavalierspecialtycoffee.com.au

Walk into this sun-filled Chippendale bakery and the smell of fresh bread will stop you in your tracks. The toastie to order is the mushroom melt, a magnificent tangle of field and enoki mushrooms with Gruyere, truffle mayo and zippy pickled jalapenos smooshed between two thick slabs of house-baked white sourdough. What makes it exceptional is the contrast: the earthiness of the mushrooms against the heat of the jalapenos; the richness of the truffle cut by the tang of the pickled notes. It’s been on the menu for years and shows no signs of leaving, because some things are simply too good to change. 206 Cleveland St, Chippendale; brickfields.com.au