Bourke Street Bakery

Paul Allam and David McGuinness had both spent years cooking in restaurants across Sydney, Prague, and London before turning to baking. In the winter of 2004, they opened a corner shop at Bourke and Devonshire streets in Surry Hills, working with rustic sourdough, pies, and pastries rather than restaurant plates.

The bakery's best-known items carry specific, traceable origins: David's travels in India inspired the ginger brûlée and pistachio tart that became one of the shop's signatures, alongside sausage rolls and a Wagyu beef rendang pie built from the same well-traveled palate. The bakery still bakes using a sourdough starter reported to be 25 years old, and runs baking classes led by its head baker.

Beyond the roughly fifteen Sydney locations the business has grown into, plus a New York venture, Allam and McGuinness co-founded The Bread and Butter Project, Australia's first social enterprise artisan bakery, which trains refugees in baking and pastry work and supplies handmade bread to stores around Sydney. The bakery also keeps beehives at its Banksmeadow facility, extending the same hands-on approach from bread to honey.