Hoisting The Batard
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday March 12, 2002
Local heroes inspired by explosive international bakes.
Allpress Espresso (The Brasserie Bread Co)
58 EPSOM ROAD, ROSEBERY.
The air around Rosebery is too heavy with industrial fumes to sniff out Allpress Espresso, the home of coffee and The Brasserie Bread Company. But the toasty, roasty, yeasty odours cloak you the minute you walk in.
Tony Papas and his partners have turned a nondescript warehouse into a funky bakery and coffee roaster. At the front, there's an Italianesque bar, slightly lower and friendlier than you'd find in Italy. You buy your beans and bread here.
Behind, through a huge wall of glass, you can see the hessian bags of beans and the dials of the roasting machine and, beyond, the bread ovens. It's taking transparency to new heights.
Bread and coffee must rank as Sydney's top food obsessions. Artisan bakers have risen all over town, roasters likewise. Papas joined them nearly a decade ago. He is the genial restaurateur who made fame and fortune with the Bayswater Brasserie, watering hole of the literary and film set, then The Boathouse at Blackwattle Bay.
The olive bread and the fougasse (french pastry) at the Bayswater became legend, then Papas and his chefs started making bread at The Boathouse to go with the seafood baguettes, ciabatta and rye (hmm, loads of butter, oysters and a flinty sauvignon blanc).
A fan of the renowned Acme Bread Co at Berkeley in San Francisco and La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles, Papas is carrying on a tradition of artisanal bread hand-made from good flours using patient methods. He and partner Michael Clausen have even lured Jason Warwick from another famous artisanal bread-maker, Baker & Spice in London's Kensington, to supervise.
Papas slides open the door of a coolroom to reveal dough swaddled in baskets like baby Moses on the Nile: the batard in willow, the bakers' loaves in wicker and the baguettes in Belgian couche linen. There are 17 breads to take home: from the original restaurant recipes to rolls, panini, sourdough baguette, fig-and-walnut bread, a wholemeal loaf and a wholemeal and white-toast bread.
Meanwhile, Craig Roche, the roaster, scoops green beans into a plastic bucket, weighs and tosses them into the rotating drum of the roasting machine.
Papas began the coffee side of the business as a joint venture with an old schoolfriend, Michael Allpress, around the same time as the bread venture. He has developed five very Sydney blends, including an organic. All of them use Arabica beans.
The business is mainly wholesale to restaurants and cafes, but the retail side is already strong. Locals try and buy, sometimes in 1kg packs, but Papas cautions that you shouldn't keep your coffee for longer than a fortnight and definitely not in the fridge.
You can get the grind you want on the spot or a brilliant espresso, which you can team with a panini (take the rolls away, too) or a pain au chocolat (with Valrhona chocolate, no less, which you can also take away).
But, if you drink here, the coffees spurt out of an incredibly sexy La Marzocca machine with the curves of a Lamborghini. Hiss and sigh.
Allpress Espresso (The Brasserie Bread Co)
58 EPSOM ROAD, ROSEBERY.
TEL: 9662 3844.
Open Mon-Fri 7am-3pm.
Best BuysCity espresso blend $11.50/300g, tin rye bread $4.50/750g, sour cherry and raisin bread $4.50/700g.
© 2002 Sydney Morning Herald