bourke street bakery.

Whew it's been a while! My sincere apologies for neglecting my little baby for so long but working life is turning out to be more time-consuming and energy-sapping than I could ever have imagined.  But no one wants to hear (or read) about me complaining so let's not!


Bourke Street Bakery has been on my to-visit list ever since moving to Sydney but somehow I only managed my first visit to the famous bakery last week.  I know, poor effort on my behalf.  Luckily the bakery has expanded into several branches across the wide city and it is literally only a ten-minute walk from my house to the Rosebery store.  You can smell the freshly baked pastries and breads from across the road and the small store is constantly packed with dine-in customers as well as those popping in for a quick coffee and tart.

Walking in, you're greeted with the noisy whirring of coffee machines, tinkling of coffee cups and a lovely buzz of conversation.  They have an extremely wide range of breads to choose from (see last picture) and their assortments of sweet and savoury treats are nothing to be sniffed at.  Having not eaten breakfast in preparation for this feast, my stomach was literally shouting at me to order everything.  But alas, one must be reasonable.  So between myself and another fellow eater, we ordered the lemon curd tart, pear danish, almond croissant, chocolate and raspberry muffin, a pork and fennel sausage roll and two hot chocolates.  Hey, reasonable is a very fluid term in the legal world.

Let's start with the lemon tart.  If you love lemon, this is the best.  If you don't love lemon, this is still delicious but could possible be a tad overwhelming.  Rich, creamy and very zingy with a buttery crust - the tart was great as an in-between for all the other sweet pastries.  

Next up was the chocolate and raspberry muffin.  To my delightful surprise, the chocolate and raspberries were buried at the bottom of the muffin in two thick layers.  Eating the muffin with a fork or a spoon is recommended since you don't need everyone else staring at your wide open trap whilst you try and get all the chocolate, raspberries and muffin in one go.  The muffin itself was very light and moist and just sweet enough without making it sickeningly sweet with the chocolate.

 The almond croissant was amazing.  I have had great and terrible almond croissants before and this ranks high up the list.  Inside the soft and flaky pastry are ground up almonds, sugar and more crumbed pastry.  Seriously delectable and surprisingly filling thanks to the stuffing.

The pear danish (pictured above) was also scrumptious in its own way.  The layers of folded pastry were soo soft and easy to bite into while the pears were sweetened to the right degree.  The danish did get a little lost among all the other items we ate, mainly because it didn't have as strong of a flavour as all the others.  However, saying that, I would easily polish off three danishes if you asked me to.

Finally, the pork and fennel sausage roll which I didn't get a photo of.  For someone who is used to the Villi's sausage rolls, this was gourmet.  The pork and fennel merged sublimely well together to create a juicy and tasty combination.  The pastry, as expected, was super soft and really buttery.  Great sausage roll, is all I have to say.

Having had such a good experience at Bourke Street Bakery, I am sure I will be back for more.  Apparently the ginger brulee tart is the best so clearly I need to go try it for myself.  Service was as expected from a small and busy shop - friendly and efficient with plates and cups cleared away almost as soon as you're done eating.