Pastelaria Caravela

Gus and Lucia Ferreira didn't kick-start our love affair with the Portuguese custard tart. That honour, they say, goes to a Petersham cake shop called La Patisserie. But the couple certainly fuelled the flames of our passion for pasteis de nata that peaked in the '90s.

In 1994, they opened Fleur de Lys, a Portuguese pastry shop in Bondi Beach, and sent the first batch of six eggy, flaky, cinnamon treats to a Paddington cafe. Five years later, Gus was making 3000 tarts a day at his factory in Marrickville.

It's a wonder he can bear the sight of them. But here he is, proudly bringing out a plate, still warm and wobbly from the oven, for sale in the family's latest venture, Pastelaria Caravela.

This cafe-cum-cake shop is the brainchild of their younger son, Diogo. The effervescent 20-year-old prodigy has been champing at the bit to open his own food outlet since he was six and pulling short blacks for customers at his parents' original Bondi Beach patisserie.

The boy barista and his parents moved to Bondi Junction in 1996, where they had a small shop in front of their flourishing wholesale operation, before shifting to Marrickville in 1999 and dropping the retail side of the business.

In 2005, Lucia and Gus sold Fleur de Lys and moved to Auckland to open a series of patisseries, but they folded three years later. Diogo saw his chance. He found a site, for the family, just outside the shadow of Westfield in Bondi Junction and decorated it with red and brown ottomans, low coffee tables and a huge counter of pastries and cakes. Pride of place goes to the best-selling, sugar-encrusted, napkin-shaped guardanapos sponge triangles with their yolky custard filling.

The sweet egg rolls, flourless coconut and syrup mimos, orange and coconut tarts, coconut brioches and dense custard sponge rolls are all here, as are a handsome creme caramel flan and little pots of creme brulee.

Eggs and sugar are the staples of Portuguese pastry. Which begs the question: what happens to all the unused egg whites? "We make molotoff cakes and use them in biscuits," Lucia says.

Another favourite, gilas, a hard-baked puff pastry parcel, has a home-made melon jam inside and an echo of Arab sweets, a culinary heritage that flavours Portuguese cuisine. There are always five kinds of chocolate cake, all made in the kitchen out the back, not to mention a chocolate fountain for the waffles.

Best buys
Gilas $3 each.
Mimo $3.50 each.
Guardanapos $3.50 each.