You can now go on an international snack adventure in a single pocket of the Inner West located just down the hill from Summer Hill Station. Four Brave Women Pop-up Bakery is an expansion of the community catering project being run through the Trading Circle, a not-for-profit organisation and shop creating economic and educational opportunities for women and girls. Originally the project operated inside the shop, allowing refugee chefs to cook a buffet-style lunch and dinner of cuisine from their homelands, up-skilling and gaining valuable business experience into the bargain.
Now three of those chefs are graduating to the next level with the expansion of the Four Brave Women Project into the old pizza restaurant next door. The new space has been co-opted into a bakery where you can buy treats from Iran, Russian and Ukraine. There are Russian piroshki (pockets of short pastry filled with spinach and cheese or a deeply savoury mushroom ragout); tiered Iranian cakes; Persian biscuits; Russian honey cake; and Ukranian ricotta doughnuts. They also make an impressive collection of vegan treats. Only got shrapnel jingling in your pockets? Two dollars will buy you an adorable walnut cookie (shaped just like the nut in its shell), which comes filled with fudgey chocolate or a smooth, buttery caramel.
Photograph: Supplied
The lease on the bakery space runs until the end of December 2018, and next door in the shop the next round of lunch caterers are sisters from Iraq, serving Middle Eastern food. This means you can pop in for a lunch of exciting dishes from Iraq, Turkey and Kuwait, grab a coffee, and then load up on takeaway treats from Iran, Russia and Ukraine at the bakery in one fell swoop. It's the better part of a round-the-world dining experience in only two shopfronts.
The Four Brave Women Pop-up International Bakery, 24 Lackey Street, Summer Hill 2130. Mon-Sat 7am-3pm.
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