Bourke Street Bakery

Corner Bourke and Devonshire Street, Surry Hills
or
130 on Broadway, Broadway
Tuesday - Friday, 7am-6pm; Saturday - Sunday, 8am-5pm

Hurr hurr...how ye cannae go a day or so without a wee pastry or hot breadsies is beyond my recognition. Argch.

Yes, yes. Pastries are not exactly the most Scottish of things...but perhaps you should consider that I was speaking in Piratish. No but seriously, how can you not eat something as delicious as that which is baked at Bourke Street Bakery? Even with my (often quite severe) intolerance to products with gluten involved I still manage to hit this place up more often than should probably be.
There are two stores. The original store, in the good land that is Slurry Hills, now bakes all the bread, and the store on Broadway takes care of the pastries. I imagine that they do swapsies some time in the early hours of the morning. The thing with Bourke Street Bakery is the range. There are the few select bakeries in Sydney that do absolutely amazing bread. Bourke Street does this, and has a variety of goods which will blow you out of this world like someone with a really huge fan. There are reportedly nine types of sourdough breads, including a grape schiacciata (basically like a foccacia), an olive-oil bread topped with crushed red grapes and cooked with rosemary, another with cherry tomato, roast garlic and basil, or walnut. Prepare yourself also for the majesty that is the daily rotation of fruit breads, like that being hazelnut and raisin or apple and oat. Seven different fruit breads...can life get any better? No but, actually.
The pastries are brilliant. I know it seems that most of the posts we do, we do with unadulterated passion and an overzealousness...but, it really is that most of these places we do review are just that good. Keep in mind that this is not necessarily a blag that pontificates on everything we do and eat - we reserve our words for that which is truly awesome. So, yerr. Pastries. Here they are golden, cooked really well, and retain a rustic, almost caramelised, texture and taste. Oh, man, they are made of delicious. The pistachio and ginger brulée tart is sensational. So. Gorram. Rich. The centre is creamy as hell, and the burnt toffee is satisfyingly crunchy. Go little green pistachio men (pieces), go! The croissants are flippin' nice, too!
The goods are honest and simple. Nothing is prettied up for image purposes, so the bulk of the baker's concentration goes into getting the goods to taste amazing. I can totally deal with that. I can also deal with them cramming their windows with their bakednosities, the flour heaving itself to the upper atmosphere of the store as everything is shifted around and into nice brown paper bags. And don't even get me started on the huge rusted old Boulangerie sign out front of the Slurry story; a relic probably bought in from Paris.
Quality pastries for the utmost win. Ladies.

I was kind of disappointed to learn that Boulangerie simply meant bakery. The beautiful sign outside Bourke Street Bakery promises so much more.

We arrived there, after getting a tad lost and wandering down the wrong end of Bourke Street, to be greeted by a massive queue out the door. It was obvious that this old school looking place had its fair share of fans. They have delicious breads of the sourdough variety, with that delicious hard crust and soft interior combo that combines to make the perfect loaf.
The best thing about this place is the creativity of it's menu. Judging purely by taste, both Sonoma, Brasserie Bread and the even more difficult to find La Tartine pump our superior bread. But picking between these four is like grumbling because you got a million dollars and not a million and one. What sets Bourke Street apart is that they do things like Pistachio and Rhubarb tarts, Praline twists and some more exotic loaves, as well as a menu that does change periodically.
Also, they use Single Origin coffee, which means that if the Barista is doing his job, you should get damned good coffee too.

You can't really ever expect to get a seat here, considering they have about three. But that just motivates you to buy tonnes of bread (literally) and eat it at your homestead. Pair it with some good jam, or a good slather of butter and you have yourself a winner.
This place is the definition of rad. I'm very glad that there's the store so close to Sydney University.