Black Star Pastry acts as a sweet beacon in Sydney, calling pastry and cake lovers from far and wide for its tarte tatins, buttery viennoiserie (made with Australian Pepe Saya cultured butter), and cakes. Let’s talk about the cakes. There’s the rightly-famous Strawberry Watermelon Cake, with its layers of fresh fruit, almond dacquoise, and rose-scented cream; an impossibly light and soft Lemon Myrtle Chiffon Cake, delicately sprinkled with toasted coconut; and a Raspberry Lychee Cake that, from the base up, features chocolate biscuit, layers of raspberry marshmallow and vanilla cream, topped with the eponymous fruit. And those are just a few of the sweet treats from Christopher Thé, the chef behind Black Star Pastry.

In fact, although Chef Thé’s background is in patisserie (and, man, does it show), Black Star Pastry is also well-known for its savoury offerings. The lamb shank pie, which has perfectly crisp pastry perched atop a red-wine rich sauce and hunks of lamb and veg, is a particular draw, as are basically any items on the Black Star Pastry menu in fact. The warm wood-accented store in Newtown – the first Black Star Pastry to have opened in Sydney – is almost always filled with eager patrons hoping for a bite of the delicious fare on offer. For those who find themselves in Rosebery and in need of a fix, never fear: since 2013 there’s been a much larger outpost there on Dunning Avenue.