When Brooke Bellamy opened her small bakery in Brisbane three and a half years ago, she didn’t expect to become one of TikTok’s favourite bakers. She also could never have thought her chocolate-chip cookies would one day bring her all the way to the UAE.
Today, Brooki Bakehouse has become a viral dessert brand with queues out the door and more than four million social media followers. Now, the Australian bakery is expanding to the UAE, following a Dh60 million investment from Sharjah developer Arada.
Before permanent shops open next year, the cookie company is set to give the Emirates a taste of what's to come as it hosts a series of pop-ups in Dubai and Abu Dhabi this winter.
From TikTok to queues down the street
Brooki Bakehouse began as a one-woman operation. Bellamy started posting baking videos online in 2022, sharing a day in the life of a baker – with everything from 4am starts to late-night clean-ups. Her approach was honest, consistent and charming, a behind-the-scenes look at the highs and lows of running a small business.
“I was showing up every day, even if it was really hard some days – a 15 or 16-hour shift and you're there mopping the floors. People love seeing that because, traditionally, a restaurant or bakery kitchen is back of house, like you're not supposed to see the magic happening,” Bellamy tells The National. “Social media has really opened up this opportunity for businesses, brands and founders to show the actual day-to-day that goes into that.”
Her content struck a chord. Followers tuned in not only for the cookies, famous for their chunky shape and rich dark chocolate, but for the story behind them.
Within a year, Brooki Bakehouse had lines out the door, a booming online business and a cult following that stretched far beyond Brisbane.
A surprise hit in the UAE
Brooki Bakehouse’s introduction to the UAE came last year, when Bellamy was invited to Abu Dhabi’s Mother of the Nation festival as an international guest brand – a first for the bakehouse.
“To be quite frank with you, we just thought it was an honour to be invited ... we had no idea anyone would know about Brooki. And then it became very evident very quickly that people already knew about the brand!” she says with a smile. “We had queues up to two hours long, and worked really hard to get that time down – no one wants to wait two hours for a cookie. But the fact that people did is incredible.”
Ahead of MOTN, her team were anticipating selling about 200 cookies daily. But over a two day period, more than 5,000 cookies were purchased from the pop-up stand.
“People were flying in from Bahrain and driving from Oman just to get one,” she adds.
The experience revealed a natural fit between Brooki Bakehouse’s aesthetic-driven, indulgent treats and the UAE’s love of desserts. “You guys really love your sweets,” Bellamy says. “There’s an appreciation for really good food and quality ingredients. People just have that level of appreciation for the finer things … It's such a world of luxury.”
Setting up shop in Dubai
After a string of successful pop-ups, Bellamy began talking to potential investors. The partnership with Arada, she says, felt different from the start.
“We were contacted by investors and people really interested in franchising the brand in the Middle East. To this point, we don't have any franchises,” she explains. “When we sat down and had a meeting with Arada, they were actually like, ‘You know what, we don't want to franchise, we want to invest in and bring Brooki to the region’. So that's where we are today.”
The collaboration will see two Brooki Bakehouses open early next year. Bellamy confirmed to The National that the first bakery will be located in Dubai, followed by branches in Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah.
“Whenever you go to any bakery, you want to smell the product before you see it,” she says, adding that she wants to tap into “nostalgic flavours” that take people back to their childhood.
Aesthetically, she says the locations are far from childish, describing the decor as “Paris meets the East Village … a bit bougie but a bit grungy and edgy”.
Creating a community, not just cookies
Much of Brooki Bakehouse’s success comes down to the online community Bellamy built, and she has no plans to lose that as the brand grows.
Her product was inspired by a trip to New York and the famed (and viral) Levain Bakery where she tried the brand’s signature chocolate chip walnut cookie, which were much chunkier than the flatter cookies she enjoyed as a child.
“I didn't even like walnuts and I loved it so much. So I wanted to recreate something like that,” she says.
It was that cookie that inspired Brooki's NYC Cookie, which is dark chocolate and walnut flavour. Other brand favourites include the milk chocolate hazelnut (injected with Nutella), cookie butter (injected with Biscoff), red velvet, double chocolate and classic chocolate chip.
“[Levain] has never published their recipes. So you kind of just go, baking is a science. You start with your first iteration and then it continues to develop and change over time,” she explains. “I would say we've only stopped changing the recipe for our cookies in the past six months,” she adds. “We live in the tropics in Queensland, so you have to always be adapting for the moisture levels and other factors.”
However, change is factored into their plans, as they’re always adapting to customer and follower feedback.
“We're always asking, where should we open next? What flavours would you like to see? What products would you like to see? What content would you like to see? Social media was never designed to be this one track, I put out content and people consume it.”
So what flavours will we see in the UAE?
“I want it to be localised with regional flavours and involving people in the process,” she says. “Every single person who comes up to me is like, I've got this idea. So I have a list, and flavours like saffron come up quite a lot, so do dates and lots of different spices.”
The brand has already tackled a Dubai chocolate flavour, with a chocolate base cookie filled with pistachio and kunafa. With trends always evolving, Bellamy is quick to respond to online feedback.
“It is quite ad hoc. If I have an idea in the middle of the night, that cookie is coming out within three days,” she says with a laugh.
Bellamy and Brooki Bakehouse will return to the UAE this December for two pop-ups, one at Marsa Boulevard in Dubai and with a second year at Mother of the Nation.
“I think that will be so fun to go back a year later and be like, ‘hey now we're here for good!’ How cool is that? That this opportunity led us here.”
