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Vulcans

Though it’s an easy day-trip from Sydney, this hard-edged old bakery space retains an aura of pilgrimage. Phillip Searle’s cuisine is a singular thing and his supplicants don’t want to miss tasting a single thing on the concise menu. It isn’t then surprising to see a table of two order all four desserts. Entrées typically include smoothly elegant duck sausage slices on beetroot, a deeply complex and aromatic South East Asian-style fish soup with noodles, and something brilliant and vegetarian like the salad of three tofus – melding creamy, firm and crunchy bits of beancurd, sesame and spring onion in a feisty dressing. The pork neck on Thai-style cucumber salad, its exterior a burnished caramel, its inside tender, is typical of the main courses, cooked long and slow in the old bakery oven. Desserts, such as the famed chequerboard ice-cream, are sweetly exquisite. A treasure.