A queue snakes in front of a tiny bakery in a suburban shopping strip. It’s just after 9am we’re in Turramurra, a suburb not exactly known for gastronomic destinations, but Flour Shop proves to be the exception. The tiny bakery is owned by Abu Haran, who I last saw in Wollstonecraft in 2018 launching the One Table Sydney supper club. There’s a tiny connection between Haran’s two enterprises with samosa rolls ($11) filled with potatoes, peas, ginger, coriander and other spices on display in the glass cabinet. However Indian-inspired pastries are not the focus at Flour Shop. The mainstays of this seasonally focused bakery menu are seed-topped Jerusalem bagels ($11)—soft and pillowy like focaccia—decked out today with a tasty mix of chorizo, cheese and egg.
Ham, cheese and mustard croissants ($9) benefit from being rolled with cultured Pepe Saya butter. The ham is a chunky dice, giving these croissants a robust flavour that stands up to the sharp spike of mustard. They’re also dusted in seeds. The star of today’s edition is the potato terrine danish ($9), where the same golden brown laminated pastry exterior is filled with orderly rows of spud thinly sliced on a mandolin. They’re cooked ’til tender in garlic, thyme and cream and topped off with a mound of fluffy grated Pecorino. It’s so good I wish I’d bought two.
While the bakery is open on limited day - Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays — they keep themselves in the minds of their local disciples by publishing a neatly scribed butcher’s paper menu on Instagram for the impending weekend. It’s divided into breads, sweets and savouries, with some items only available on specific days. Not being hugely into sugar we just admired the glossy tray of coffee-on-coffee eclairs ($10.50) then settled for our caffeine-fix in a cup. Seasonal dead Jesus fruit buns ($4) were walking out the door, but the treat that got us excited was the ‘cinny’ scroll ($6.50). This was a perfect exemplar that tore apart beautifully with a crisp exterior and a silky interior well spiced with cinnamon (not cassia), the bonus being it wasn’t too sweet. I’d like to return to try the musakhan: Palestinian flatbreads decked out with spiced roasted chicken and sumac onions with a sprinkling of fresh herbs.
